I just got this today at a NAWCC mart.It's a Zenith mounted chronometer watch,8 day wind,15 jewel.It was a automoble clock and in WW2 the Navy needed chronometer's and this was upjeweled from 6 to 15 jewels and the wind indicator put in.You can see were they took off the 6 and put a 15 mark for the jewel count.

On the movement is vail watch co who are they?And is the movement swiss bought by vail wathc co?

In SWISS TIMEPIECE MAKERS, Pritchard mentions a deck watch marked Zenith Chronometer on the dial and Vail Watch Co. USA on the plates. That one had serial No. 202,087 from circa 1925.


Pritchard also notes that starting around 1923 to 1924 Zenith started making chronometers. This was not a favored activity and Zenith had far more success with their deck watches.

My guess would be that Vail was a commercial U.S. distributor of Zenith deck watches and chronometers. I don't see any military connection.

Best regards,
Greg

Is it military or civilian? I do not see any military markings.

On page 393 of whitney's book military timepieces it talks about this deck watch and has photo's.It said Zenith orginized vail watch co to make automobile clocks and when the war started they upjewel from 6 to 15 jewels to meet the Navy specifications and in 1942 Hamilton started production of the model 22 so you see less of these that mite make it rare?All so said the Naval Odservatory overhauled them for the fleet and maritime commission.Jim I don't see any marking I have a waltham with Naval serial No. but from other collectors they say that is rare to have marking so may be it was not done a lot on these smaller chonometer's.The one in whitneys book you can see were the jewel count was changed from 6 to 15 just like mine with my eye sight I needed a lupe to see it in the photo in the book.

Here is a copy out of military timpieces thought you mite want to see it.

I live in the bay area they use to have a lot of base's around here plus the moth ball fleet were they did have a lot of liberty ships and WW2 era Navy ships that have been scraped who knows were this came from the history in this watch.If any of you vistit the bay area check out the SS Jeremiah O'Brien the last Liberty ship afloat from D-Day it's in great shape the cargo winches are steam powered and the engine on it was used in the movie Titanic they made the engine's look bigger in the movie.

I have had this Zenith for over a week now.And have been going to the US Naval Observatory master clock web site here is the site http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/simpletime.html
And it has not lost any time in a week this can still do the job it was made for.

hi Mike ; any chance you can post pictures of the Zenith chronometer deck watch box? thank you very much,Tom