There are two articles in the last Bulletin of interest to military timepiece collectors.

IDENTIFYING MORTAL REMAINS BY HOROLOGY?
BY Fortunat Mueller-Marki

German horological periodicals from 1916 were examined and found to contain official lists of pocket watch serial numbers compiled by German military authorities. These lists were published to the trade in the hope that watchmakers might find the numbers in their repair lists and thus help identify the remains of unknown German soldiers through their watches. Descriptions of these watches are also of interest. One in ten was a key wind. Escapements, when noted, where about 50/50 cylinder to lever. No wristwatches were listed. Other interesting tidbits about life in WWI Germany are also noted in this informative article.

THE O-SIZE WRISTWATCH HAMILTON’S FIRST WRISTWATCH FOR MEN by Bryan Girouard and Will Roseman.

The authors provide insight into the manufacture and marketing of early wire-lug wristwatches by the famous Hamilton company. Compelled by the market which WWI opened up, Hamilton started with a rather small number of wristwatches in 1917 in 17 and 19 jewel models. By October of 1917 Hamilton’s marketing dept changed the name of these factory cased watches from “The Gents Wrist Watch” to the “Military Wrist Watch.” However, non of these watches
were purchased by the govt. Any of these watches used in the Great War would have been private purchase. The authors note that the only U.S. Gov’t Issued watches at that time were the Swiss Zenith brand Signal Corps wristwatches. Although we know there were other Swiss Signal Corps watches, the point is well made. This article is excellent reading if you are looking to build a collection of WWI era wristwatches and would like info about the early Hamilton watches of the war years.

Best regards,

Greg

Greg,
tnks for the info, it is very interesting indeed! How can it be accessed by Non-members? Has it any link avlbl?
I am linking this post on the GMW Forum.
rgds
Enzo

Hi Enzo,

There have been discussions about making the BULLETIN available on line. But, sorry to say, this is not yet a reality.

Best regards,

Greg

Greg,

Thanks for bringing our Bulletin article on the 0-size Hamilton wristwatch to the attention of the forum.

Since its publication, we have learned of other Signal Corps wristwatches in addition to the Zenith models mentioned in the article.

Much of our article we eventually hope to incorporate into a comprehensive book on early Hamilton wristwatches, so if you know of other Signal Corps watches in addition to Zenith, please let us know, as we want our the information in our book to be accurate.

Thanks in advance.

Bryan,
I posted pictures of all the Signal Corp watches ever made some time ago... For some reason the Tavannes didn't post but pictures of the rest are there... Jeff Hess bought the whole collection so he will have pic's of all of them... Here is a link to them but if the link doesn't work they are a little ways down on the next page in this forum....
https://ihc185.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/990103944/m/6141038851

Thanks! Pictures came through loud and clear.

Just this past week, someone mentioned to me that Cyma made U.S. Signal Corps watches, it's nice to see a picture of one.