I have the 1940 Longines Weems pictured . When I acquired it the 4:00 locking crown was missing as so many are . The hole was plugged with brass pin stock polished flush with the stainless steel case. Today I finally got around to pushing this brass out ,chasing the threads clean and making new parts based on fuzzy old photos and some guess work .

The main flaw in my first prototype is that the jaw of the L shaped "locking washer" wants to turn out of alignment when locking down against the rim, an annoyance that I am sure was addressed in the original design but how ?

The split photo to the right of the main one is of the newly made lock held on for now an incorrect crown. Does anyone have good photos or a detailed description of the original locking washer on the 4:00 crown version Weems ?. The 2:00 crown version Weems came later,was cased in a keystone case and looks like it had a slightly differentlock but even this might give a clue.
As far as the Weems watch in general, if anyone has any then please lets see them !!.

Many Thanks
Anthony

Anthony,

I'm sorry to say I don't have a Weems. I might guess that the washer had teeth to mesh with the wheel, but that would be a guess.

I would suggest posting your question on www.broadarrow.net. There are some advanced collectors of the Weems who often visit - it's possible that one of them can assist with your Weems.

BTW, what is the emblem in the center of the dial?

Best regards,

Greg

Thank You Greg, I will check them out. The Emblem is that of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis where Lt. Cmdr Weems taught his Weems Navigation system. I see these dials only on the 4:00 crown models but never on the 2:00 so I am wondering
if the 2:00 crown Weems might have been made after the war. The Patent number is below this shield.

Yes ,it has two teeth but that does not stop it from wanting to turn. There is a Weems up now that has a few very good shots of the Crown lock . A square lock washer is sitting in a little U channel to keep it from twisting. All very self explanatory and an easy enough project but the washer looks too big and the rear section of the channel looks roughly finished so I am not sure if this is the original lock or a reproduction modeled on the original ,maybe by memory . It also looks seated in a channel cut in the side of the case ,I have no such channel or signs that there ever was one.

Best regards
Anthony

Anthony,

I had always been of the opinion that the "2:00" version, aka "little Weems" were actually earlier than the larger "4:00" version. I had understood that the Weems had already been declared obsolete prior to the war, and was being phased out of military inventories, explaining the rarity of the Ordinance Dept. marked models.

This one came to me with a letter of provenance from the original owner that put it's date of purchase at 1940. The 6.1 million range serial number also indicates 1940 production. I've seen RAF stamped "big Weems" with dates as late as 1943 (which of course means nothing about actual production dates).

Here is the back side as well...

The watch was sold to me as being all original, and there was no indication that either crown, or the locking clamp had ever been replaced.

One more view...


This one is on it's way to a collector in Japan, but I'm sure I could get more detailed pictures for you if needed.

Regards,

Cary

Hello Cary

Thanks,a nice and original looking case,do you have the case number or a photo of the inside?. I had heard here and there that the 2:00 Weems were first as well but I started to question this when I kept coming across base metal 2:00 Weems in great shape with little or no corrosion where as the stainless steel cased 4:00 Weems always look well worn. Movement aside since these could be changed out with ease. The following is merely un-researched theory based on observations and what little I know of the Weems watch compared to the vast combined knowlage of others on this site who I hope correct any errors I am sure I will make in the following .

All 4:00 Crown Weems are cased in a Swiss made stainless steel case signed with Longines Watch Co ,the case numbers and of course the usual Acier Inox etc. which is what you would expect for a 1930's Longines watch . I do not think Longines had any reason to use an American made keystone case before the war. I need to check into this further .

As far as I know the Weems was never placed in the U.S. military inventory as issued equipment either before or during the war. Realistically if I were shooting the sun at noon I would want something more along the lines of a Hamilton 23 . The Weems while maybe good a learning tool was probably not very useful for navigational purposes.

During WW2 I think almost all U.S. watch production was diverted to the Military so a non-military Weems watch would have a hard time getting made let alone cased and timed in the U.S. as all 2:00 Weems are so marked. The production of a gold filled civilian Weems watch during the war seems even more unlikely. If Longines used their own cases before the war and all keystone cases made during the war was slated formilitary production then that leaves the post war era for bulk of keystone cased Weems

As far as the case goes I am not sure that keystone wristwatch case numbers can be used to date them either since I have date stamped keystone military case backs with serial numbers that run out of order so maybe they reset them
at the start of each contract run. Again I have a lot more things to check into and can be completely wrong on all things.

On your Weems the first thing which caught my eyes was that it has gold hands and dial, I am not sure this would be original to a steel Longines but I have seen them on gold filled ones. Also the dial appears not to be marked either with Weems or with the Weems patent number or are these just faded ?

Regards
Anthony

In case anyone was curious here is the first page of the Weems U.S. Patent #2,008,734 listed on the dial.

Anthony,

We've certainly been hearing different information. I have personally seen, although I don't have pictures, more than one "little Weems" with US Army ordinance marks on the case back AND "Property U.S. Army" factory engraved on the movement. I am sure that they were issued in the 1935-1938 period.

My example was owned by a gentleman who was a test pilot for North American. Beginning in 1940, he piloted the prototypes of both the B-25 Mitchell, and later, the the P-61 Black Widow. He also further states in his letter that he made "76 crossings of the equator" while flying for The USAAC Air Transport Command. The watch was a private purchase which he used because he preferred it. As it was a private (civilian) purchase, it had a civilian dial. All of the ordnance marked examples I've seen (plus a gold-filled Wittnauer I once had) had luminous hands and numbers, and a red seconds hand. The patent numbers seem to be an occasional occurence, and I can't say I've noticed a correlation between dial style and the presence of the patent info. I do know that it's no great problem to have the patent numbers added when any Longines 10L dial is refinished at at least two of the big refinishing houses. I have seen the patent numbers on Longines and Wittnauer watches in plain bezel cases (there was recently one on eBay), usually in solid gold. I've attributed that to recasing surplus military movements, but I once had a seller tell me that the watch was equipped with the "Weems escapement", whatever that was supposed to mean.

I have also seen heavily worn examples of the "big Weems", which I attributed to more aggressive use during the war, and to poorer quality base metals due to increased demand for strategic metals. I've also seen them by Omega and LeCoultre, and though I know the Omega example was in an Omega signed case, I don't know any other details. I've seen "little Weems" by makers other than Longines or Wittnauer, but always attributed those to movement swapping.

That the cases for the "little Weems" being made in the USA isn't odd at all to me. There were prohibitively high tariffs on watches during the 1930s, a protective measure meant to help out American producers during the depression. In some cases, a complete Swiss watch could be taxed as much as 4000%. Importing movements and having a US agent assemble watches using cases made in the US avoided those charges. That's also why many early wristwatch movements (even cheap ones) are marked "adjusted", but after 1930 you see them marked "unadjusted". The "adjusting" was considered a manufacturing step in finishing a watch, so by doing it here, they avoided more potential taxes.

But I digress...


And finally, the patent drawing is for an earlier and more complicated version of the second setting watch, involving a smaller integral dial that was inset into the main dial, and turned with the crown (a setting button allowed the crown to turn the inset dial) to align the seconds with the hand. The turning bezel was a simpler approach to the same thing. I've seen one pocket watch with the inner dial feature.

For a little background into Commander Weems, his biography at the website of Weems and Plath makes for interesting reading about a fascinating man. The "seconds setting" watch we're dealing with is the one referenced in the article. The "hour-angle", also made by Longines, is used in the celestial navigation computations based on the "Air Almanac".

Hope this helps,

Cary

Thanks for the great photo and the input, yes I think its very hard to get any good solid information on these, its all "I heard this" and "so and so said that". Nothing in print from Longines or Keystone so anything you have adds to the list of information ,Thank You !

That patent by the way is the patent number that are on ALL Weems dials that have a number, not just mine. The why it is there has to do more with marketing then truth I think. I believe the only item on this watch that is really covered by the Patent listed is the idea of locking the bezel to the time,nothing more. Even the rotating bezel idea was invented before the Weems.

All Weems watches civilian or otherwise will have either the this Weems Patent number or the name Weems or both. If missing then it is not the original dial. That much at least most everyone agrees with. And a Weems dials on a non Weems style bezeled case is just a mismatch,not a Weems watch.

There was only one useful feature on the 1940 Weems and that was the bezel, that's what the "hour-angle" you found refers to, the bezel on the Weems is called an "hour-angle" Bezel . There was no complex hidden mechanism doing calculations,the bezel was very simply a locking record of the time deviation of the watch just like the deviation card of a RR watch.

Since the Weems was not hackable there was no way to set the time to the second unless you wanted to stop the movement,wait and shake. The idea of the Weems bezel is that you moved the bezel to the correct second as you listened to the radio. Hackable movements made the Weems more or less obsolete . That the Weems did not have a hackable movement also brings up another problem. Mil spec during WW2 called for a hackable movement be issued to aircrews etc. The regs do not say "or a Weems watch". That's not saying you could not own one,just that you better have your hackable Bulova on you as well.

I thought of the tariffs issue as well, but then if it was the government was buying them before the war they would have waved the tariffs ,the government does not tax itself. And plenty of other Swiss watch companies here were using Swiss cases at the same time as Weems so there could not have been that big of an issue as far as the case alone was concerned .

People throw out the term "military issued item " but then where are they all ? Limited procurement item is more likely I think. The term Issued to me ,being Ex Military means there was a government contract for thousands of them. That they were on equipment lists, that if you were authorized to have one you could go to base supply sign for one and have the supply clerk reach back and take a Weems out of a stock of dozens. There would be TMs covering the repair of them and tons of old surplus parts still floating around . I do not think this was ever the case with the Weems. Yes,I have seen where the Army and the Navy procured and engraved small numbers off the shelf items and this I do think happened and I will assume this is what you saw but then I do not consider these to really be an normally issued watch ,just a very rare one.

I have looked at dozens of Weems and have yet to see one engraved with anything other then personal engravings. I am not talking about the older and bigger Weems the RAF used .If anyone has photos of one please post them

When it comes to military items of all kinds I am always amazed on how the most common of grunt items are transformed with creative writing into either Special Forces or Ex Navy Seal equipment ,there must be more Ex Seals then girl scouts out there. And all watches that even look slightly Military become "Pilots" watches so one
has to be careful about what information is out there and a lot it get repeated so many times and so fast that it is taken as fact.

Regards
Anthony

Anthony,

Just to clarify a bit, the watches we are discussing are the Weems "seconds setting" watches. The "hour-angle" watch is a more complex design, with the seconds dial being an internal inset, and the rotating bezel featuring information linked to Weems' navigation booklets. This is the big complicated looking watch that Longines marketed with the Lindbergh name, and reissued just a few years ago. I do not believe there were any military versions of the "hour-angle" watch, though doubtless some pilots used them.

You are correct that the idea of locking the seconds-marked bezel is the key to these watches, hence the name "seconds-setting". In the original patent, and on that pocket watch, and the earliest wristwatches, covered under that patent, the bezel does not move, rather there is a seconds marked disk on the dial that rotates and locks into place, serving the same purpose as the rotating bezel. These watches were made as early as 1929. I believe that the rotating bezel seconds-setting watches, as we are dicussing, came to be in 1935.

I also agree that the ordnance marked examples are a rare exception, rather than the rule. If you consider how few pilots there were in the Air Corps at this time, and how few of those would have required a navigation watch, it shouldn't be a stretch to imagine that very few of these were purchased and issued by the Army. As I said, my understanding is that they were declared obsolete before the start of World War II. How many hacking wristwatches have you seen with pre-war ordnance markings? I know I haven't seen any of the A-11 or similar watches with dates earlier than '42. There is an old post on the green board with the nomenclature from an AAC Wittnauer Weems, which seems to indicate a 1940 date, but there is no photo.

I do know that my information on the pre-war tariffs is correct, and have seen very few pre-war Swiss watches that could be verified as having been imported by a dealer during the 1930s (as opposed to being worn over by an individual). I have had Longines, LeCoultre, Omega, Wittnauer and Movado watches from the '30s, all in watch co. signed Wadsworth, Star or Keystone cases. Even if the government could have waived a tariff, they wouldn't have tried to compel the foreign manufacture of something that was already being produced here.

I have also seen others (including my pictured example) of the "little Weems" and the "big Weems" with neither patent info, nor the word Weems, on what I believe were original dials. I have nothing other than the word of the gentleman who originally purchased this watch that the gold numeral dial was original to it, but I choose to believe him.

I fully agree with you about the plethora of "important" military items being huckstered off, and I also believe that the vast majority of little Weems and more than a few of the (non-RAF) big ones were civilian purchase only. The hard to verify part comes from examples like mine, that were civilian purchase for use by a military pilot. Certainly not an issue watch, but used in lieu of one.

I'm looking for pictures of one of the Army marked examples. I've seen precisley two of them in the last ten or so years, and one of those was in Canada. Surely somebody has photos posted somewhere. A search of "weems" on the green board brought up several discussions of Waltham and Hamilton pocket watches with the Weems patent dial, and a couple of posts invloving the ordnance marked little Weems, but no photos.

A most interesting puzzle, to be sure.

Regards,

Cary

Hello Cary
I went though my Weems file and I had a photo of a Weems 2:00 with engravings all along and did not realize it . I am doing this on and off and forget what raw data I have culled. I am not sure if I can post the here photo as I do not even know where I got it from but the engraving on it is

U.S.A.C.
#10 / 69 LN
TYPE A-11

USAC would be the U.S Air Corps a term used late 1930,s before U.S.A.A.F.
Its case number is in the 300,000 range .I need to find when the Type A-11 spec came out.

By the way, 2:00 Weems Keystone cases seem to be in two groups. One which are in the 300,000 range and the other in the 7-800,000 range, it are the Weems in this 7 to 800,000 group that I am wonderful about the most.

Also ,if you go to antiquewatchonline.
com/wristwatches5.htm and if the link still works,you will see a Weems who's case numberis amazingly only 3 away from yours. It has the Weems dial and is what I believe your Weems
looked like when new. It has a personal engraving

There was a great Bulova Military Double Rotating Bezel Model A15 on the bay which looked like it was based loosely on the Original 1929 weems concept . It was item 8933758549 .It went for$898 I though it would go a lot higher

Regards,
Anthony

The name U.S. Air Corps was the official name from July 2, 1926 through June 20, 1941 when it changed to U.S. Army Air Force. It stayed USAAF until September 18, 1947 when Congress removed it from the Army and created a stand alone air branch of the U.S. military and gave it the name U.S. Air Force which it has retained up to the present.

Because your watch is marked USAC, it could have been made under any contract for A-11s up to June 20, 1941 and perhaps for even a short while afterwards while the name change made it through the procurement systems and into the contracts.

First let me say that the watch who's engraved back I wrote of is neither from Carys watch or mine. It is from a Weems with crown at 2:00 and comes from I know not where hence my reluctance to post it and possibly infringe on someone's copyright should it appear is some book on military watches. But as long as we talking about it,I have an observation to stir up the mud about this engraving.

Firstly , the engraving on the back of the Weems now in questions says on its third line that it is a Type A-11. As far as I know .there was no such a thing as a Type 11A Watch Spec until the Ordnance Department came up with it in 1940 so we will assume that the engraving was done on or after this date .
The engraving on three lines again is:

U.S.A.C.
#10 / 68 LN
TYPE A-11

Next problem, I would think that a watch without a hackable movement and in a non waterproof snap case would fail to meet the
Type 11A spec at least for use as a navigators or aircrew watch no matter what year it was from for either the U.S.A.C. the U.S.A.A.F. or my old Alma Mata the U.S.A.F. And even if this watch was in system so to speak before the change then once the new specs were wrote up in 1940 and implemented force wide then it and any Weems so made and cased would instantly fail to meet military specs for aviation or navigation use from this 1940 date onwards.

Hello to everybody, i'm new here.
Just to add little information about these nice watches, they have been issued mainly with the Royal Air Force.
I enclosed a pict from the net, about an original Longines 6B/159 Air Ministry to give an idea of original crowns.

The other, a Zenith, is mine and i had the same difficulties when i restored the watch.
No pictures so i adapted/fabricated the missing parts
just with imagination.
Both crowns missing, bezel locking crown tube was closed and tin soldered, winding crown tube filed off and friction spring below the bezel, broken.
Some friends of MWR gave me some pictures but no one on a Zenith.
Hope it helps a bit.


Cheers, Aldo.

Very Interesting, who's the case by? Any interior markings of photos? I think the lock will look like this based on the photos I have found on the net. The base might even be as simple as a washer with the two edged folded up by the looks of some of the photos.

Anthony, i remember a detail that someone told me time ago, regarding the bezel locking crown.
The screwed part ends, where is fitted to the crown, with a square shape.
It has not the threaded tube inside like common crowns.
Here is a pict. showing the crown.
About the back, unfortunately i have no pictures but i think it have to be marked by Longines.
Movement is a nice 12L.
Cheers, Aldo.

Thank You Yes I saw that feature early on from the photo I found below. A normal screw on crown might come unscrewed from the post so its only logical to do that. I thought it looked like they took a stock watch stem and used it upside down so I made a rough one like that to see how it worked and it did fine.

As far as the weems go I am new to military watches in general and what I know would not fill a half a page ,I really need to get some of the books on the subject. I never really actively collected them either,most of what I have just kind of came to me both when I was in the Military when they were no big deal and afterwards here and there. But from what I have seen at least it looks to me like the RAF Weems have many different makes of movements but few case makers ,that A.M. Goldsmiths and Silversmiths of yours for example. So I wonder if they were a contractor for the modification of existing watches into "Weems" Watches,have any idea ?

Goldsmiths and Silversmiths were just suppliers for the British Air Ministry.
Watches arrived directly from Swiss with the engravings on the back as request.
Among manufacturers,Omega,Movado,Zenith,JLC,
Longines with slight different cases and bezel locking system.
Cases , those i happened to see, were marked inside with swiss movement manufacturers brand name.

Cheers, Aldo.

I had read on a British board that the RAF were using them during and for a short time after the war but how far after I do not know. I have been concentrating more on the 4 o'clock Longines Weems and to a lessor extent the 2 o'clock crown versions but not any weems marked by the AM or the MOD if any . Really from my photo file I am seeing that there maybe were two versions of the 1940 4 o'clock longines Weems
when I think there was supposed to be only one but thats for later. Does your watch
have a hackable movement ?

Regards
Anthony

No, it doesn't hack.
No one of them have hacking device in fact they use the bezel to synchronize the watch.
Strange that an Elgin 539 war timepiece hacks while all these Swiss not, but they are older.
About the other 4 o'clock Weems you mentioned,i've never seen it too so far.

BW Aldo.

Yes,as it should be,the hack makes the rotatable bezel redundant for weems use. But some apparently do oddly have hack and while one can assume these to have replacement movements ,I am keeping track all the same. Yes the Elgin 539 movement as used in type A-11's ,the specs of which called for among other things that it have a hackable movement. As far as who had a hackable wristwatch movement first of that I am not really sure but I would not be quick to assume it to be a Swiss innovation.

All the best
Anthony

An update, I think I have found 3 styles of 4 o"clock crown 1940 weems case one of which it turns out is a modern re-issue I did not even know existed,this confused things a bit so I need to re-think things. I believe I have come across this re-issue case more then a few times fitted with older movements and sold as original but I am not sure yet,still learning. I do not know if they reissued the 2 o'clock crown model in the past as well.

The 4-5 Longines AC weems that I have seen over the years were all dated 1940 with s/n in the 3 digit range. The low s/n perhaps explain the rarity of this watch. This one just arrived recently, s/n 40-525 and movement no 5938629. I understand this became obsolete when the proper A11 hack (spec. 94-27834) were introduced in ~1941-42, with the earlier one made by Elgin/Waltham in white dial. The second bridge is stamped "US ARMY AC" and is the only other swiss movement that I am aware of has military marking, apart from the 2 post-war RAF Mark 11; IWC and JLC.
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