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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Watch family · Transitional

Trench Watches (Wire-Lug Transitional Watches)

Verified

Small watches with wire lugs soldered onto an existing pocket-watch-style case, worn on a leather strap, representing the direct mechanical and stylistic bridge between the pocket watch and the purpose-built wristwatch.

Movement & mechanism

  • Movements are, in the great majority of surviving examples, conventional small pocket-watch calibres rather than movements purpose-designed for the wrist
  • Wire lugs soldered directly to a case originally intended to be pocket-carried
  • Often fitted with a protective grille ('shrapnel guard') over the crystal for military use
  • Luminous (radium-based) numerals and hands, in period, for night visibility

Identification

  • Soldered wire lugs, often visibly a later addition to an otherwise pocket-watch-style case
  • Case back or movement still resembling a small pocket watch in construction and layout
  • Protective wire grille over the crystal on genuine military examples
  • Radium luminous material, now a recognised handling hazard requiring appropriate care

Terminology

  • Wire lug — a simple soldered wire loop allowing a strap to be fitted to an otherwise pocket-watch-style case
  • Shrapnel guard — a protective wire grille fitted over the crystal
  • Officer's watch — a period term for these strap-worn conversions

Known variations

  • Civilian wire-lug conversion
  • Military-issue trench watch with shrapnel guard
  • Officer's private-purchase trench watch

Pocket-watch ancestry

This is the transitional category itself: trench watches were, quite literally, small pocket watches with wire lugs soldered on so they could be worn on the wrist, driven by the practical demands of trench warfare where consulting a pocket watch on a chain was impractical; the type documents the actual mechanical and cultural handover from pocket to wrist that all other wristwatch families ultimately descend from.

Collecting notes

A historically important transitional category bridging pocket and wrist watch collecting; genuine period examples with original lugs, dial and radium markings (handled with appropriate care) are of considerable historical interest distinct from their modest mechanical specification.

Related photographs

Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 1
Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 1 — Kozuch, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 2
Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 2 — Kozuch, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Mechanical wristwatch
Mechanical wristwatch — Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

No confidently matched photograph of this subject has been found yet. These photographs show a closely related record, and are not examples of the type described on this page.

Sources & references

  1. Cutmore, M., Watches 1850–1980
  2. General First World War military equipment histories.

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.