Clocks · Clock
Smiths MK 2, 8 Day RAF Clock, 1941
- Maker / attribution
- Smiths (maker)
- Date
- 1941
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Clock
- Stock no.
- vws2069
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Vintage Watch Specialist (vws2069)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Smiths MK 2 - 8 Day RAF Clock - Dated 1941 (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Vintage Watch Specialist (dealer), United Kingdom (stock number vws2069), this is a clock by Smiths, made in England, dated 1941. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Clocks collection. The record is illustrated with 6 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — Vintage Watch Specialist
Historical WWII RAF Aircraft Clock Dated 1941 at the Peak of the War Smiths Group has its origins in a jewellery shop, S Smith & Sons , which was founded by the watchmaker and businessman Samuel Smith . Supplying its precision watches to various clients, including the Admiralty, the business quickly grew and expanded into a major provider of timepieces and automotive instrumentation. Smiths later produced instruments for the expanding aviation industry supplying gauges and instruments for cockpits. Smiths was probably best known at the onset of the second world war as a clockmaker - accounting for 50% of the UK clock market! What’s On Offer These clocks were produced and fitted to Mosquitos, Lancasters, Spitfires and Sunderlands amongst others. The dial is marked 6A - I cannot make out the numbers after this, it is also marked 40891/41 indicating manufacture in 1941 - meaning it is almost sure to have seen live-action during the war. The dial is synonymous with military timepieces, stark black dial, large Arabic numbers and cathedral hands. The lume on the alternate Arabics has aged to nice chocolate colour and the lume on the hands has also survived all this time! The time is set using the pin at the bottom right of the clock. The backplate is marked with the AM & crown stamp, denoting it as property of the MoD. Recently serviced, this is a really nice piece of military history and would make a unique desk clock or dash clock for military or classic car enthusiasts. A wonderful gift perhaps?
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Between 1900 and 1945 clocks were electrified: master-clock systems ran factories and offices, synchronous mains clocks entered homes, and the Shortt free-pendulum clock set new standards of accuracy before the first quartz clocks (1927). Art Deco design reshaped mantel and table clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Domestic clocks
A clock combines four systems: a source of power (falling weight, coiled spring, or later electricity), a gear train that divides time, an escapement and oscillator that regulate it (foliot, pendulum or balance), and an indicating system of dial and hands or a bell. Its history runs from the large iron weight-driven clocks of the late thirteenth century to Renaissance spring-driven table clocks, the pendulum revolution of 1656, the factory clocks of the nineteenth century and electric and quartz clocks of the twentieth.
Domestic clocks also reflect regional furniture and decorative traditions — English longcase and bracket clocks, French pendules, Viennese regulators, Black Forest and American shelf clocks — and therefore record changing tastes as much as technical progress.
What to look for
- How the clock is powered: weights, spring barrel, fusee, electric coil.
- The oscillator: foliot, short pendulum, long seconds pendulum or balance.
- Whether it strikes: hour only (count wheel) or hours and quarters (rack striking).
- The maker or retailer's name on dial and movement, and any factory trademarks.
- Signs of alteration — replaced dials, converted escapements, 'married' cases.
Dating clues
- Before 1656 clocks used foliots or balances; after, most domestic clocks have pendulums.
- Anchor escapements spread after c. 1670; minute hands became common at the same time.
- Factory production in America and Germany transformed prices after c. 1840.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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