IWC Schaffhausen launched a fleet of new Pilot’s watches at SIHH 2016 in Geneva (including a pair of extra-sized Heritage models, a new “Le Petit Prince” annual calendar, and the innovative Timezoner chronograph), continuing the brand’s long and storied heritage as a supplier of timepieces for aviators. Here, courtesy of IWC’s archives, we present a lineup of vintage and modern IWC pilots’ Replica Watches that represent milestones for the brand — and for watchmaking history.
1. The First IWC Watch Ever Taken Into The Sky (1896)
This pocketwatch, with a 14k yellow gold case and containing the IWC-manufactured Caliber 53 movement was sold by IWC on December 1896 to IWC Replica Watches retailer A. Kohler from Leipzig, Germany. Another German, Albert Lotter, inherited the watch from his father in 1916. During the following years the watch and its owner, who lived in Saxony and Berlin, witnessed many 20th-century historical milestones. The watch still operates with good timekeeping precision.
2. IWC’s First “Special Watch for Pilots” (1936)
IWC started focusing on the production of technically advanced watches built specifically for aviation at a very early stage, becoming a true pioneer in this field. Progress made in aviation and navigation had created a growing need for watches that offered maximum reliability under the toughest conditions.
Ernst Jakob Homberger (1869–1955), IWC Fake Watches managing director during the 1930s, had two sons who were so passionate about aviation that they decided to manufacture IWC’s first “special watch for pilots” in 1936. The watch, containing Caliber 83, had a shatterproof crystal, high-contrast hands and numerals, a rotating bezel with an index for recording short periods of time, and an antimagnetic escapement. It was also highly resistant to temperature fluctuations, ranging from –40 degrees Celsius to +40 degrees Celsius.
3. IWC’s First Big Pilot’s Watch (1940)
The first IWC Big Pilot’s Watch was supplied to the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in 1940 in an edition of 1,000 pieces. The “big device,” constructed according to the criteria for an observer’s watch, is the largest wristwatch ever made by Cheap IWC Replica, with a case diameter of 55 mm, a height of 16.5 mm, and a weight of 183 grams.
4. IWC Pilot’s Wristwatch Mark 11 with Nato Strap (1948)
In response to a product requirement from the British government, IWC developed a service watch for pilots of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The technical specifications stipulated by the RAF were very rigid, including a requirement that the movement had to be protected against magnetic fields. Production of the now-legendary IWC Fake Watches Mark 11, with Caliber 89, started in 1948. In November 1949, the watch was supplied to airborne personnel of the RAF and other Commonwealth nations and remained in service until 1981.
5. IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Ceramic (1994)
Forty-eight years after the legendary Mark 11 was launched, IWC built on its Pilot’s Watch tradition with the launch of the IWC Watches. In 1994, IWC launched another Pilot’s Watch Chronograph, intended for modern aviation and equipped with a case made from high-tech zirconium oxide ceramic — a material as hard as sapphire and virtually indestructible. Its movement is caliber 7922.
Tag: IWC Pilot’s Replica
The IWC Mark XVIII Replica Watches
The first time I ever read anything about the IWC Mark series, it was thanks to (of course) everyone’s favorite non-watchmaker watch writer, the inimitable Walt Odets, who in his series, “Tweaking The Mark XII” called that particular Mark “every non-pilot’s favorite pilot’s watch.” I wasn’t so much interested in the Mark XII as I was interested in what you’d do to tweak a movement so as to wring the best possible precision out of it, at least at first, but like many, I gradually began to find the simplicity, clarity, legibility, and history of the Mark XII irresistible and like many, I’ve followed the evolution of the Mark series ever since then with avid interest.
Overall, the Mark XVIII is one of those Replica Watches that you can simply wear every day, without taking any particular notice of it, which I mean as a compliment. Over the time I wore it it quickly became a matter of habit to pick it up, put it on my wrist, and pretty much forget that it was there unless I needed to check the time. At 40 mm in diameter, and 11mm thick, it’s a watch that has enough substance, and size, to feel and look reassuringly solid when you glance at it, but not to a degree that calls attention to itself in any way when you aren’t using it as it was intended to be used.
A big part of the easy wearing experience is the strap, which is a black strip of pretty heavy-duty feeling calfskin, made by Santoni for IWC Replica Watches, with an eye-catching orange lining. You don’t see it at all when you’ve got the watch on, of course, but the little flash of color you get when you take the Mark XVIII off adds that much more character to the wearing experience. A little touch, but a nice one. The strap, like the watch, has a very substantial feel, and it’s a little stiff at first although it starts to break in nicely after a couple of days. I suspect it’ll age very nicely and become comfortably supple without losing any of its toughness after a few weeks of regular wear, and like the watch itself, it manages to convey a feeling of being able to tolerate hard use, but also not call too much attention to itself. The strap and the watch together definitely feel like a piece of trustworthy equipment.
The time is, as it should be, instantly legible, pretty much under any lighting conditions you could possibly imagine, from direct sunlight to total darkness, thanks to the high contrast dial and generous application of lume on the dial. It’s not as torch-bright as some of the most brightly illuminated IWC Fake Watches I’ve worn, but even after the first bright glow of charged Super Luminova wears off, you can see what time it is just fine. This is a very, very versatile watch as well, thanks to the simplicity and utilitarian nature of the design. Now, about that date window. My impression over the years has been that it is very hard to add a date window to a Mark watch without irreversibly ticking some people off, and deploring the use of any date window on a Mark series timepiece goes all the way back to the Mark XII, which was (of course) deplored in some quarters for diluting the austere beauty of the Mark XI with a reminder of the current date – in white, no less. I don’t think anyone would argue that the position of the date window in the Cheap IWC Replica Mark XVIII is going to rub some of us the wrong way. The two basic objections are to its placement and to its being there at all.
I don’t feel especially passionately on the subject either way. Very often the watch I happen to have on doesn’t have a date guichet, but (and this is just a personal note) I tend to forget the date and I don’t mind having it there on the Mark XVIII. In principle I definitely sympathize with those who wish it weren’t there at all, but in practice I found it something I could simply ignore, and in real life it didn’t bother me in the least. I will say though, that if you hate it in pictures, you’re probably not going to stop hating it if you have the Fake Watches Mark XVIII on your wrist.