Lot 343

Glycine

Airman Special

A very attractive vintage pilot's wristwatch with 24 hour dial, second time zone and date for the US-American market

Sold

The Airman is one of the first world time watches ever. The patent for the Airman design with a second time zone and a 24 hour scale was registered in 1953 by Samuel Glur, a senior executive at the Altus-Glycine company in Biel. The Airman Special is the US American version of the Airman where the movement features only 17 jewels as opposed to the original 25. The reason for this was a change in the American customs regulations which based the customs duty on the number of jewels in the movements. The Airman was very popular in the United States and commonly used by US helicopter pilots during the Vietnam War.
The beautiful matte black 24 hour dial of this particular Airman Special features slightly darkened caramel-coloured tritium indexes and vanilla-coloured arrow-shaped luminous hands with a tail to facilitate reading the time in the 12 hour display.
The needle shaped seconds hand with lollipop tip completes the attractive layout. All Airman models dating from before 1969 such as this example are fitted with a special second stop function. When the upper crown is pulled, a piece of wire moves through a hole between the two digits of the number 24 and stops the seconds hand.
This is a marvellously beautiful vintage aviator’s watch which makes the heart rejoice day after day.