GEARS - Watches and Derailleurs

The Shrapnel Guard Sometime in 1915 Harry Daw, an Englishman, came up with the lath design represented below.  According to www.vintagewatchstraps.com , he received a patent for it in Britain 1916 with a priority date of August 11, 2016.  A U.S. patent was also received in 1917.  See a forum discussion at  Watchuseek.com  about this type of guard. Accordingly to the foregoing referenced sites and my additional research, Mr. Daw made these guards of several different materials (Nickel, Gold Filled, 9ct Gold and Sterling Silver) in a variety of sizes. This particular guard is a size 3 in Sterling Silver. Mr. Daw's guards were quite substantial pieces unlike thin stamped and cast guards made of pot metal or steel. This particular guard is highly marked.  If you scroll down through the photographs you will see four marks that were stamped on the inside of the guard.  The HD is Mr. Daw's mark.  The second mark of a lion indicates the material is...

Well, I started this blog in June of 2018, wrote four entries and stopped. I went back to check on it recently and found that essentially no one has seen any of the posts. Hmmm ... I may need to change my strategy, or perhaps more accurately stated, employ a strategy to drive traffic to it. But at the very least a new post is in order. This time, another trench watch is profiled. Actually, the accouterments are more interesting than the watch itself. Let’s begin. The watch itself is another Patria similar to the watch discussed in my prior post. It is not exactly the same: the case and dial are a little different as is the movement but to the uninitiated they look nearly identical. I bought this watch off of eBay likely from a US seller, since Patrias were mostly marketed in the US. European trench watches tend to be either unbranded or branded in the name of the department store through which they were sold. The watch did not come with a strap or shrapnel guard: the ...