WW2 Sniper CES

[Peter Laidler]

Later, you could buy genuine Army CWC wristwatches in the shops and on ebay. New for £60 I seem to recall. There was no real repair policy so thousands were sold off by the government as sales. However, soon, the crunchies learned that if you got issued with one and 'lost' it, you'd be charged the VAOS 'charge-for' price - which was £25 - the bulk, buy-in cost price! So they'd loose one, buy it and be done with it.

The BIGGEST killer of the old mechanical wrist watches, without any shadow of doubt was the ending of the wartime and post war leather straps (that were crap really. These were replaced in the early to mid 60's by a sand coloured nylon strap. Alas, these nylon straps didn't have the secondary 'double restraint strap' built in as the later grey straps do. As a result, as soon as you took he watch off, it';d slide down the strap, onto the floor. That resulted in one or two things happening to it. Or BOTH. The balance staff would break (that fault was always 10033/3) or the winding head shearing off the stem (a 10033/12 fault).

Don't ask me how I remember these things............