Today I am going to show another extremely rare German military timepiece used by the Kriegsmarine in WW2 in excellent condition: An early nickel-plated pocket "Schaltradchronograph" (Cal. 40) made by the famous Swiss-German watch maker Hanhart. The company was founded in 1882 and therefore has a long tradition. Hanhart produced - as you all know - many wrist chronographs for Luftwaffe pilots in WW2. This piece shown here was designed for Kriegsmarine personnel. The black "KM" signed dial was made by the Pforzheim based company Weber + Baral and has a red Telemeter scale for measuring sound propagation or torpedoes by using the small pusher. As far as I know the pocket KM came before the ulrta rare wrist KM. On the reverse of the watch you can see the untouched Kriegsmarine eagle, underneath the letter "M" for "Marine" (navy) and the quite low number "140". Due to the movement serial "1084?2" the watch could have been made in 1940/41. As you also can see much work was put in the case manufacture and the back cover was given very peculiar design by guilloche engraving.
Regards, Florian
Posts: 10 | Location: Vienna in Austria | Registered: January 06, 2015
Thank you for posting this rare and very high quality chronograph. I don't think many of these survived the war and post war era in such excellent condition.
Posts: 2014 | Location: East Lansing, Michigan USA | Registered: November 24, 2002