Issued Eterna Kontiki Super IDF dive watch

[river rat]

Military watch collecting got be in to Military surplus collecting were now I collect other military surplus other than watches but military time pieces is what I collect the most watches with history. Well here is one that does got the history part covered. It was issued to the Israeli version of the Seals the Eterna Kontiki Super IDF as it is known to military watch collectors and it's some thing you can wear and not a military collectable that all ways in a collectors cabinet it can be used .


The issue marks

Has a cool spring loaded clasp that adjust to your wrist. See link below a really cool site on military issued watches.


IDF KonTiki Super | MilSpecTime

Information

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[gsimmons]

Great collection rr!

[Peter Laidler]

We used to have ETERNA wrist watches issued in the UK Military. I had one but by 1970 or so I couldn't get a new balance staff for it which was a shame.

[river rat]

We used to have ETERNA wrist watches issued in the UK Military. I had one but by 1970 or so I couldn't get a new balance staff for it which was a shame.

If you still got the watch try this guy and he is in your neck of the woods

home page for spare parts for vintage wrist watches & pocket watches

[Peter Laidler]

I gave it to one of the watch repairers in the instrument shop who had a movement from a CYMA(? I think it was) that fitted the Eterna case and I used it for another few years. They were all about the same size but being what we call Valuable and Attractive stores (V&A) theywere always accountable and hard to 'acquire'. Being on active service made things easier.

[river rat]

Peter that watch you were issued did it have WWW on the case back there were twelve different makers of them like Omega, Timor, CYMA , Eterna and others when you get all 12 it's called the dirty dozen and some crazy money it paid to get all twelve I did have a Timor sold it a few years ago. A link on the dirty dozen hit the colored letter to see a photo of the different watches in the link page. A lot of great military issued watches came from England.
W.W.W. - Wrist Watch Waterproof

[Peter Laidler]

The ones that I remember as being the most common were Jaeger le Coutre, Record, Omega, Eterna, Cyma Vertex, Longines and Timor. Without any doubt, the best were Omega followed a close second by Longines. They all had the WWW and arrow on them and the serial numbers all started with a different letter. It was Y for Omega as I still have some. The WWW actually stands for WATCHES, WRISTLET, WATERPROOF. The part numbers also followed the same train as W10-VB 100xx. It was W10/VB 10033 for Omega followed by another number for the parts. So a balance staff would be 100xx/3 or a balance wheel assembly would be 100xx/7 and so on.

I have just read the article you mention above and some of the info is what I have provided!

As a matter of interest, as these watches were being withdrawn in favour of the Smiths 'Bridgend' watches in the early 70's, the old primary watches (the 12 you mention) were not disposed of as such but used as timing devices for training bomb disposal teams. A bit of a shame but there you go!