Today I am presenting a very rare and over 100 years old pocket watch used as a deck/command/observer watch by the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy) in WW1. The watch was made in Switzerland. The brand Doxa was founded in 1889 by Georges Ducommun in Le Locle. This timepiece is a big and quite heavy one. The diametre of the movement is 52mm and the full length of the cased watch is around 93mm. On the white enamel dial the very nice German watch maker signature "F.L. Löbner Königl. Hof-Uhrmacher Berlin W.". Franz Ludwig Löbner from Berlin was starting in 1905 official supplier of the Imperial German Navy and starting in 1913 "Watchmaker of the King". The case with two hinged backs is not silver made, but argentan. Setting time with the help of the small pusher and then moving the crown. That was just made from 1880 until 1920 with all these antique pocket watches as you know probably. On the back the impressive hand engraved German Imperial crown, the huge letter "M" for "Marine" (Navy) and the high navy inventory number "459". My friend Konrad Knirim is showing two of these nice watches in his second book on German military timepieces on page 73. I will post another one like this with a slightly different movement and the navy number "109" here a little later.

Regards, Florian

Beautiful example as always Florian! Thank you for sharing. Mike