Wristwatches · Wrist watch
Wrist Watch - Trench, 'ANZAC', 1920s
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1920s
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Wrist watch
- Dimensions
- 35 mm (Outside Diameter)
- Holding institution
- Museums Victoria, Melbourne
- Accession / object no.
- HT 25378
- Catalogue title (original)
- Wrist Watch - Trench, 'ANZAC', 1920s (English)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Museums Victoria, Melbourne (object number HT 25378), this is a wrist watch, dated 1920s. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Wristwatches collection. Recorded dimensions: 35 mm (Outside Diameter). The record is illustrated with 3 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
Summary — Museums Victoria
Man's trench wristwatch, marked 'ANZAC watch', probably 1920s. Swiss movement and nickel case, presumably with Australian dial. The wristwatch would appear to be an attempt to use the Anzac name to sell watches. The word Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) was quickly controlled from commercial exploitation by government. In 1916 the Commonwealth Government issued a regulation prohibiting the use of the word for commercial purposes. Some businesses, however, had already started using the word, and sought permission to continue to do so. In 1921 legislation was enacted by the Commonwealth Parliament for 'Anzac' to be a proper noun (no longer fully capitalized).
Physical description — Museums Victoria
Manual, circular white dial with skeleton Arabic numerals, sub-seconds at six, nickel case and replacement brown leather bands.
Inscriptions & marks
Dial marked 'ANZAC WATCH' Inside rear case stamped: 360708.
Provenance
Purchase
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
The wristwatch overtook the pocket watch. Military use in the First World War, aviation, water-resistant cases (1926), automatic winding (1923–31), rectangular Art Deco designs and early chronographs and calendars defined the period.
Read the period in the timelineMore wristwatches from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Military, pilot and travel watches
The wristwatch owes much of its adoption by men to warfare and aviation. Wristlets — small pocket watches soldered with lugs and worn on a strap — were used in colonial campaigns and became standard equipment in the First World War, with protective grilles over the crystal ('shrapnel guards'). Louis Cartier's Santos (1904), designed for the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, is often cited as an early purpose-made pilot's watch.
In the Second World War governments specified watches in detail: the German B-Uhr observation watches, the American A-11, and the British 'W.W.W.' (the 'Dirty Dozen' set of 1945). After the war, jet travel brought GMT and world-time watches, which show two or more time zones at once — Louis Cottier's world-time mechanism and the Rolex GMT-Master (1955) are examples.
What to look for
- Military markings on the case back: broad arrow, issue numbers, 'W.W.W.', 'A.T.P.'
- High-legibility black dials with luminous Arabic numerals; oversized crowns for gloved hands.
- 24-hour hands and rotating 24-hour bezels or city rings on GMT/world-time watches.
- Wire lugs on early wristlets converted from pocket watches.
Dating clues
- Wire-lug wristlets: c. 1900–1925.
- Military specifications of the Second World War: 1939–1945.
- GMT and world-time wristwatches: mainly after 1950.
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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