Interesting news on German forum: a lost Mark IX

I sometimes lurk in on the German forum and at the moment there is a great discussion about a Mark IX with central second and cal 61 inside. It was thought by expert to be fake all the way and never produced by IWC. Today it seems that the German Moderator got inside information from two people at IWC who actually remember that this pilot watch was made by IWC and that only 20 of them were produced. So actually this is a forgotten and now rediscovered version of the Mark IX. So you guys can start the search for the other 19 if you want to add something special to your collections.

Link to German discussion

Picture from Ecus on German forum

Interesting but not news, here's a post from 2002

Please click on the link below for more information,

The only news is that a second one has surfaced and also that someone affiliated with the factory tends to recall a run of 20. Unless the archivist discovered something new in the records, no one at IWC worked at the factory in 1939, and the person who showed me the one here would have as much "inside" information as anyone.

But, regardless, this is interesting to those interested in history of rare pieces.

click here

Thanks for the extra information Michael

Does anyone know...

who and when the Special Watch for Pilots was first called Mark IX? If there was a Mark X, it stand to reason there was a forreal Mark IX in the MoD. What was it?
Thanks in advance.

There was no MoD Mark IX...

Mark X is a misnomer too, the W.W.W. has only been called a Mark X in latter years, by collectors. It was never an MoD specification or name. Similarly, there was not a Mark IX (IWC called it the "Special Watch for Pilots") and this has become a "label" in recent years.
Mark VII, VIIa and Mark 11 are the only correct "Mark" designations for MoD wrist watches (specifically, the RAF), I think.
There were earlier pocket-watch based Marks (Mark V for example) which date from around the First World War and several aircraft clocks carried Mark designations (Mark II, IIa, IIb, IIc, IId, III, IIIa, IIIb, IV, IVb, V, Vb and perhaps others).

Ross

Thanks for the correction.

I actually thought the W.W.W. was at one time designated as Mark X by the MoD. I have a Mark II (not IWC), which is either a pocket or a deck watch, or both.