Horological Meandering

I'm fascinated with chronographs and, more, when they have two registers without date.

This weekend, on our regular GTG, a friend was wearing a Lemania that I love.

Based on my little knowledge about Lemania in general I presume that this one was made for the Royal Navy around mid seventies and sports a 1872 movement.

Enough said, let's see this beauty:

Perfect size, working as a charm.

Not too tall, dresses very well.

The dial is perfect, even for a "lady" with more than 37 years. Amazing patina.

Caseback with the Navi? marks.

I erased most of the ID marks, as usual.

Final note:

The watch is with an Omega mesh. It could be much better, IMHO, with a leather strap (I'm not a fan of meshes).

Cheers and thanks for looking,

Nilo

This one:



... Which is on my wish list...



Best,

Nicolas

"Bright Minds Think Alike".

But, please, post yours with yours words of wisdom.

Cheers,

Nilo
This message has been edited by nilomis on 2012-10-01 06:07:00

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Lovely watch. Your post catches me in the middle of an evolving admiration for Lemania. Besides being the secret engine behind many a chronograph produced my other manufacturers, Lemania itself strikes me as the quiet epitome of the tool chronograph. Yours is a good example. From their various versions, it looks as if they worked closely with the end users and were willing to tweak and modify countless times to enhance applicability. All business without fanfare - I respect that!

I only wish it was.

This friend (All guys that goes to our GTG) is another "black hole" (everything enters, nothing leaves!).

I also have a great respect to Lemania. I only feel uncomfortable with the Lemania 5100 because of the plastic parts, but this is just me.

Cheers,

Nilo

This one is in my collection as well, and I love it to death.



It's a beautiful watch to wear and as you say, very pure.

The British Military's love affair with Lemania started in the late Forties when they used the predecessor to yours and Nico's version.
Until the end of the Sixties, to the best of my knowledge, the Lemania one button chronographs were the only chronograph wristwatch
issued to the UK armed forces.

Your one, as you state, dates to 1975/76, and is one of the rarest military Lemanias. At the end of the Sixties the MOD switched
from Lemania to CWC (well initially Hamilton then CWC) who produced their chronographs through to the end of the Seventies
and the introduction of quartz watches. These Lemania's were produced for only a very short while in the middle of this run.





The first set of markings tell you what branch of the military the watches were issued to - these are the same on all the watches issued
to that branch - and they would have been issued to pilots or navigators. The number underneath is the unique identity number of that watch.

As you say this does have the Lemania 1872 movement, which I believe is the same (or adpated from) the Speedys Omega 861.

Nico's version is also a very rare and sought after as I bleieve it is one adapted for use on a submarine.

IMHO - these are still a good find for a vintage chronograph - inhouse movement and military provenance - wearable and attractive, what more could you want?

This message has been edited by Ubik on 2012-10-01 08:47:06

Ubik,

Of course, when this watch poped out, yours was my reference.

Cool watch with the historical bonus.

Cheers,

Nilo

Your last statement is definitively true. Lemania chronographs, military or not, are still amazing and affordable  collectors' items

The black dial for the RAF and the white dial for the FLEET AIR ARM.

Lemania are a brand that make very lovely chronographs, (up until the 861 that is)

You have lots of friends with black hole collections Nilo. I would kill to see all your friends watches as a table shot.

I've let so many go that i regret and it kills me to see them again, but that is the way of things.

Best
G

No message body

About the 100% originality of this watch (caseback, pushers and maybe the crown).

Please, do not use those pictures as reference.

Tomorrow, the member that raised those concerns will explain in detail.

Sorry about that,

Nilo

I'll post my questions about this tomorrow - on closer look I think it has several question marks?

He got this watch 15 years back and tomorrow morning we go to our watchmaker to have the case opened and see the mysteries that are inside.

I will be there to take pics from the inside and I will update this post.

In any case it will be very educative to all.

Warm thanks,

Nilo

these Lemanias are amongst some hidden treasures, very nice!  I love the one button versions, British and Sweedish army issues, on my list, one day!...

Wrong hands? Should be more slender...

A (refinished?) one-button dial? Numbers are cut off, unlike Ubik's

Wrong crown? Should be shorter with a chamfer on inner surface.

"Interesting" caseback opening slots/wrong caseback?

"Interesting" number stamping?

 

Hi Ben,
Long time no hearing from you here.

Whats the goss?

G

...hiding on the Auto and Time out areas, G.

No watch goss, sadly. Work permitting have been playing/working-on with a couple of bikes (petrol and human powered) and sorting out some dive stuff now that the sun has rediscovered Melbourne.

How're them chickens?

This message has been edited by BDLJ on 2012-10-02 18:24:47

You get the sun amd i get torrential rain for the whole week. How i envy the rich and famous who can follow the nice weather.

I've been keeping an eye on the duke progress emails. Looks good.

G

....slowed a bit, sourcing stuff for the engine rebuilds is slooow. And of course, the basic stuff, the stuff you need to get started is the slowest. Sorting out the bodywork now...which isn't fun.

Will send you some more PMs/emails and not clutter up Nilo's thread

I've added a few more thoughts further down - cheers.

these are the questions I would have about it. Of course this is just based on looking at a series of them that all
share the same attributes - which don't appear in this one.

On the other examples the pusher and crowns are bigger - they exactly fit the gaps for them, unlike this one.

Hands are atypical - although I tend to give some lattitude on the hands as the military might well have changed them
for whatever they had to hand that fitted.

The dials are different - as BLDJ says they don't cut off the fours and the subdials are different. If you look at the Def Stan document
from the MOD the chronograph dial shows only 10/20/30 minute markings.

The shape of the case seems different. This is hard to tell from just seeing the pictures, but to my eye it has sharper steps and a different shape
in the bezel.

Leaving aside the way the caseback markings have been added - which again I can't see well enough from the pictures. I think
there is a larger issue. Nilo has rightly obscured the markings, however from what I can see my guess is the NSN code here is
0552/924-3312 - which according to Knirim's book British Military Timepieces was only used for Submarine issued watches,
which would not have any luminous material.

Also at this time the second line would have had the number followed by a slash and then the date /75 or /76 - which I don't believe is here
either.

The caseback slots - all the examples I've seen have sharp rectalngular slots, while these have a rounded end.

Here are some other examples, love to hear in any one elses thoughts.

Credit - Chronomaster website

Credit - MWR Broadarrow website.

This message has been edited by Ubik on 2012-10-02 01:16:59

Here are the pics from the case back inside and the movement:

Case back (last two digits masked):

Movement (Last two digits masked):

I agree that:

1) The dial is ... strange but we could not see, even using a 20x magnifier and my watchmaker expertize any indication of redial.

2) The hands could be thinner but this is something that I don't understand.

Ubik's one, has the chronograph hand that does not match any of the other examples. Looks, for me, similar to the hands of a Speedmaster 321 but I may be wrong.

3) The case back military marks are not compliant but, I thinking with my logic, if someone go to fake a case back, printing number, why not print the "/75" or "/76".

My question:

Considering that during the 70's all watch companies were in deep trouble, could this watch being made by Lemania to another military organization, reusing what they had on the parts bin?

Cheers,

Nilo

Note: I love those discussions. They allow us to increase our knowledge and have a nice theme for conversation.

...which would seem correct for the era....but is missing one of the levers to the cam? Does the chrono work?

Would love to see inside Ubik's example to confirm.

 

But to me, the question is the caseback, with incorrect, unaligned and stamped (rather than engraved) numbers and uncommon slots.

I believe that the case back numbers should be a concern, when we match then with the Navy standard.

Did you notice that the numbers seems to be misaligned because I erased portions of the number?

Did Lemania produced this chronograph to other armies?

Cheers,

Nilo

1 - The dial. It may well be an original Lemania dial and it bears a resemblance to the dial style found on the one button assymetric Lemania. The aim
would be to find another reference of a military watch with the same subdial. As a note on the Lemania dials, many of the original dials were redialled by the
military - the so called MOD dial - either to make them conform to their standards or to remove the Radium and switch to Tritium (hence the circle T) and
other less nasty luminous compunds.

2 - the hands, are not typical of this type of watch, however as you rightly pointed out my watch doesn't have the "correct" chronograph hand,
more than likely replaced at some point in its life. That's why I don't hold too much store by hands being correct or not, if that were the only issue.

3 - caseback markings. Here's were things get more difficult, as BDLJ has commented. To the best of my knowledge and the research I've seen, the designation on the back of this watch is 0552/924-3316. If this is the case, then it seems that this is a unique reference given to watches that were to be used on submarines. As you can see by the MOD documents I've posted - dated 1969 and 1974. The main property of the Submarine watches were to have dials and hands with no luminous material at all, which from the pictures of your watch does not seem to be the case. I don't see a way to square this circle?






Also all British military watches were engraved and tend to be pretty neat on the whole, whereas the one you show seems atypical. In answer to your question, why not copy the correct markings, it's possible that the person who put them on did not understand them and copied them from another watch. It's not uncommon to find people copying numbers from books or other references without knowing what they actually mean.

Here is a set of Submarine Lemanias.





(Picture credit - Don Aldo - MWR Broadarrow website)
Your last question - could another military organisation have used this watch? There are a number of possible answers to this. Many different countries used Lemania one button watches, Australia, Canada, Italy and South Africa are ones that I know of, on top of that of course many other countries used NATO stock
numbers, Germany for example. So for this watch could be marked up for another countries military, with the NATO stock number (although usually there were extra marks which made them different to the UK numbers), is entirely possible. However it still would be designated a watch for use on a submarine and then it shouldn't have a luminous dial and hands.

Also to place it in context, the single button Lemania's were replaced by the Hamilton and CWC two button chronographs in the early Seventies, other countries do have examples of these. However, with the best information I know, I haven't seen any other country with the two button Lemania, which is a rare watch and seemed to have been ordered only in those two years, 75 and 76, in small quantities.

Of course we are learning new things all the time and when dealing with military watches it is not like you can always go back to the manufacturer and get information, so new things do come up. For example, the one button Breitling that Nico shows was a pretty mysterious watch only about six to eight years ago.

In terms of the movement, perhaps the Omega collectors want to chime in here. This is a movement to the two button Lemania - notice the bridge engravings.

(Picture credit - MWR Broadarrow website)

 

Credit - Dr No (I believe)

 

Close the case.

I will deliver the bad news to my friend.

It's a shame that he got this watch many years back and only now it could be validated. To mitigate his pain is the fact that, at that time, he didn't paid too much (I hope).

This and other similar disappointments are strong factors that I, personally, avoid vintage watches no matter how much I love those beautiful pieces.

Thank you very much,

Nilo

You just have to stick to the platinum rule: In case of doubt, pass. Or ask.

Best,

Nicolas

This message has been edited by amanico on 2012-10-03 11:37:17