AUTHENTIC VINTAGE SMITHS RAILROAD GENTS WRISTWATCH

SWISS MADE ENGLISH SMITHS RAILROAD  GENTS WRISTWATCH 

CIRCA 1970'S

WHITE DIAL WITH DAYDATE AT 3 O'CLOCK

ACCRYLIC CRYSTAL IS CLEAN WITH NO CRACK OR SCRATCHES

SWISS MADE 17 JEWEL CAL.1217-21 MANUAL MOVEMENT

LUMINOUS BLACK COLOR METAL HANDS

RAISED LUMINOUS BALCK BATON MARKERS

CHROME FINISH TOP AND  STAINLESS STEEL BACK CASE MEASURES APPROXIMATELY 37mm EXCLUDING THE CROWN AND 40 mm LUG TO LUG

BASE METAL UNSIGNED CROWN

20 mm LUG SIZE

NEW BLACK WITH BROWN TRIM LEATHER BAND FITS 7.5" WRIST

DISCONTINUED MODEL... RARE

EXCELLENT CONDITION, KEEPING TIME AND RECENTLY SERVICED 8/11/2012

PRICE OFFER FOR RM550.00

The History of English Smiths Wristwatches

Smiths wristwatch history began in 1939 when Cheltenham factory was asked to produced watches for the war. By the end of 1939, Smiths produced 8,000 jewelled lever escapements every week. They were able to supply the military with a pocket watch and chronograph pocket within three years.

Within this period, Smiths managed to produce a cheap range of ‘pin-pallet’ watches marketed as Smiths Empire and also high quality wristwatches to compete with Swiss wristwatches. All Smith watches were produced at Bishops Cleeve factory in Cheltenham. One of the man behind the successful of Smith was Robert Lenoir, a Swiss trained watchmaker who lived in England after the First World War. Lenoir provided the impetus behind Smiths improvement in the design and finish of their work and which finally led to production of a high-grade wristwatch in 1945. Lenoir had been the person in charge of the Jaeger Instrument company in England. That's made many collectors/researchers believed that Jaeger-LeCoultre were involved in the design of Smiths which were not true.

In 1951 Smiths had changed their typically English looking movement with frosted and gilded plates to the new movement of ‘12.15’ calibre - 12 ligne in size (26 mm in diameter) and 15 jewels. This movement which fitted to their De Luxe model was a great success for The Smith Watches. Smiths gained very much needed publicity when Sir Edmund Hillary wore a De Luxe watch on his historic ascent of Everest in 1953, and became a major of Smith advertising campaigns.

Strong and easy to service, these watches were liked by both the consumer and the trade, and came in a wide variety of case and dial designs. Smiths most expensive gold cased examples were sold with their own silk lined box complete with certificate. The 12.15 movement was also adapted to have centre-seconds work which was designated as Smiths 27.CS calibre. The added plate for the centre seconds work has two extra jewels, making 17 in total.

At the same time Smiths produced a smaller 8 3/4 ligne movement with 15 jewels allowing production of a high grade ladies watch, though it is thought that the tooling for this particular calibre may have been purchased complete from Switzerland. This movement also allowed Smiths to offer a now rarely seen smaller men’s size of De Luxe watch – as well as it being a suitable larger sized ladies model. 

By 1955 Smiths had also developed a new 17 jewel, 8 3/4 by 5 1/4 ligne, rectangular ladies size movement, designated as their Calibre 200. When first announced to the trade in the Horological Journal it was hailed as the smallest British watch then in production. This report was written by R A (Andrew) Fell who was later employed as a consultant at Smiths in order to oversee development of a new range of wristwatches.

In 1959, Smith introduced their Imperial model with calibre 0104, manually wound calibre with 19 jewels or 25 jewel self-winding movement. This automatic model became Smiths most expensive watch. Smith also used the name of Everest  for their most expensive automatic watch and the name of Astral, a name used by H Williamson Ltd.  By 1960s, The De Luxe line of watches continued to be sold along with the  Everest and Astral models. Smith also produced wristwatches in gold, gold plated, chrome plated and a few rare all stainless-steel cases, mostly  in Dennison cases with waterproof screw backs.

Smiths also made watches specifically for other retailers such as J W Benson, Asprey and Garrard who retailed Smiths English watches under their own names. Some of the watches used high grade 12-15 movement, 18 jewels, with Arnld/Breguet overcoil hairsprings.

Although Smiths’ were the most successful English Watches  but in 1970 Smith suddenly stopped all production of their movements and turned to Swiss movements to produced their watches.

It is almost  sixty years since the Smiths watches were founded. Some of the Smiths English watches have been survived through those years and they are sought after by many watch collectors.