Timor

 By Bruce Shawkey

 If you've ever heard of Timor watches, you should win a prize. They had a brief presence in the market in the 1950s-'60s post-war watch boom. But they are best known for a single watch, a general service watch they supplied to the British Ministry of Defense (MoD) during WWII.

                  First of all, I want to emphasize that the current Timor Watch Co. is no way compensating me for this article. My interest is strictly historical and the fact that I personally like the watch the company is set to release in November.

It is fairly well known among watch nerds that a Mr. Bernheim and a Mr. Luthy founded Timor in 1923 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, nestled in the heart of the Swiss Jura mountains. During 1930s, the brand built a modest popularity in Britain, Germany and France. But they really didn't gain notoriety until the second world war when they supplied approximately 13,000 watches to the British Ministry of Defense (Mod) an example of which is

shown at left. Their watch would eventually become one of the so-called "Dirty Dozen" watches supplied to the MoD by 12 different watch companies, today coveted by modern-day military watch collectors.  The Timor isn't the rarest of the bunch; that title goes to Grana, with estimates of 1,000 to 5,000 watches supplied. But the Timor field watch is certainly difficult to find.

In any event, Timor is set to release a remake of their famous WWII field watch in November (right). As you can see, it is virtually identical to the original. It will be available in either manual-wind version for purists, or an automatic version for

those too lazy to wind their watch once a day. The manual version will contain the Swiss Sellita SW216 movement with 24 Jewels, providing up to 42 hours of running time. The automatic model will house the Sellita SW260 movement with 31 Jewels and 38 hours of power reserve. Both movements will be modified to remove the date function. Cases will be bead blasted, like the originals, and feature screw-down crowns.

What I like most about these remakes is that Timor resisted the urge to "super-size" these remakes to please the current convention that men's watches must be ungodly big. The diameter of both watches will be 36.5mm, the same width as the original. This is plenty big, as the American-made Ordnance watches of WWII were around the 32-33mm mark. The price for either watch (manual or automatic) is €1,078,95 and comes black nylon strap. For an extra €35,95 you can order a contemporary NATO-style strap of woven nylon in Army Green or Desert Tan. A Heritage Strap of canvas was available at €47,95 but was sold out as of this writing.

The original price of either watch was to be £950, around €1,106 or $1,282, but obviously has been reduced a tad since the kickstarter campaign to fund the building of this watch began back in February of 2020. The watch was supposed to be available November of 2020, but obviously has suffered delays due to the worldwide Covid 19 pandemic. As stated earlier, the revised rollout date is set for November 2021 and hopefully they will be ready at that time. Pre-orders are available at timorwatch.com.

 To continue with their history, the brand experienced modest growth through the 1930s with the focus on testing every watch that left the factory. This focus led to Timor's popularity in Britain, Germany and France throughout the 1930s and their slogan, "Trust Timor ...It's Tested."

In 1939, Timor was one of the first watch companies to build a watch for the blind and partially sighted. It featured a hinged opening bezel and brail numerals to track time.

After the war, Timor's attempts to re-enter the civilian market were only marginally successful. Their designs were rather mundane, as evidenced by the one '50s advertisement I was able to find (left). During the 1960s, the company claims to have come out with a line of "stylish dress watches with a minimalist theme, and focusing on precious metals at an affordable price." Translation: mundane designs, and 9 karat gold cases ... considered barely gold by most collectors.

Their failure to find a niche, combined with the quartz crisis, forced the company into dormancy in the 1970s.

In the early 2000s, the Timor brand was acquired by the Bolzli family of Switzerland, which owns Aerowatch. They initially offered Timor-branded pocket watches based on designs from the 1940s and 1950s that proved popular in the far east and helped bring Timor watches back from the brink.

In 2015, Timor stopped manufacturing pocket watches to focus on rebuilding their most iconic watch from the second world war built for the British troops.

In 2018, Timor relocated its headquarters to the Newcastle upon Tyne in the north of England to further cement its bond with Britain. Two years later, they embarked upon the project to release the successor of their WWII field watch. They used a fairly new technique of using kickstarter.com to appeal directly to their audience to pre-order watches to generate the funds to manufacture the watch. This technique has proved successful with other micro– and mini-brands, including Pebble, Xerex, and Alpina, among others. Let's see if it works for Timor.

Typical Timor watches from the 1950s and '60s. 9 kt.
gold (two left watches) and chrome (right).