Hi all. This deck watch has been in my family for as long as I can remember and I inherited it from my father. But i am not sure how it entered into my family. My family has a long navel history. As you can see from the photos the box says H.M.S Ark royal. I know the has been 5 ships call H.M.S Ark royal as was wondering if any one could put a date to it to help me work out which H.M.S Ark royal it came off. Any help would be much appreciated.

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Sorry had to use phone as a camera as my real camera made the files to big. I'm also new to forums sorry again. The face say Zenith 7139 swiss made

The back will probably screw off and the movement would then be exposed.
To post photos that are too large, edit them on your computer to about 1/4 the original size and that should work. Someone will be able to give more definitive directions than I can.
A photo of the movement will enhance your probabilities of identifying the watch.

HS3 is a WW2 designation of a moderately rated deck watch, the HS representing the Hydrographic Survey of Great Britain, the "3" a designation for deck watch. The next grade up,the HS2 ,designates a watch as a Chronometer Watch. The key piece of provenance is missing,the issue card from the card holder,which would indicate where it was issued from and when, as well as what ship it was issued to!!

Thank you for all your help all ready. I managed to get the back off so here are some photos.

Writing inside says 3327/39 and 19-34-3-1

And back of case says B382252.
Also thank you for your help with the photos. I should have had a good read it first.

Much better picture of the front

Your deck watch with the number 3327139 is probably from late 1941 to the first few months into 1942 ...and a very fine watch it is indeed, it would fit in my collection just perfectly


Count yourself lucky that yours was spared the fate of most of the others from the Admiralty, they were converted at Herstmonceaux castle by the MoD into watches for work studies, with decimal dials, making them look like this one of mine;









This was an answer from the MoD on a question about the watches;

Thank you for your enquiry which Jonathan has passed to me.

As you undoubtedly know from your own collection, these were originally issued with a conventional dial as a navigation watch, HS3 being the Admiralty designation for a deck watch. In the 1970's some were withdrawn from navigational use as other timing methods built on frequency standards were introduced gradually into warships. Numbers of them were re-dialled for use in Work Study in the Naval dockyards, for those on piece work and other routine tasks. The watches were fitted with the new dials supplied by Watch Dials of Burford. The outer circle on the dial basically, with a sweep second hand, subdivided the minute into hundredths. The new specification watch was given a new NATO Stock number 6645-99-52-0243 and Service Management Code or Domestic Reference Number 0552/521-.0243 I attach a scan of some other examples including the packaging. You will see the number you quoted was in fact the manufacturer's part number as per your photograph. The scan also shows an extract from the Def Stan table as well for interest and I also include in the scan a picture of a Zenith version and its packaging. You will see that the back of the case has only the last 4 figures of the serial number on it whereas on the movement one can see the whole number 3286516.


I trust this is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Linstead-Smith OBE
Commander Royal Navy

Horological Volunteer
Royal Observatory Greenwich



Best Regards

HMS Ark Royal

Thank you so much for the information. You have am amazing collection. It must have taken a long time to collect that many. Really nice. Is it a privet collection?.
How much do you think my deck watch would be worth?

What book is that in the pics?

The military watch collectors bible...
British Military Timepieces by Dr. Konrad Knirim

THANKS WERNER!

You can buy one directly from Konrad - here is a link to Konrad's website He also has written one on German timepieces.

Add this to your database

#3286562 circa 1940-41