Reverend Rob
Posted March 14, 2014 - 11:07am
Watches that were converted to trench wristlet watches were done by jewellers, and so would have been hard soldered. A competent goldsmith would have made the conversion almost invisible.
Pendant watches are almost always Lepine style, so unless the dial has been rotated and/or modified, a crown at 3 means the watch was intended to be a wrist style, or was a hunter pocket watch, albeit a small ladies one. I don't see a lot on the subject, but ladies' wristwatches would have been in common use before the soldiers started wearing them that way. Bulova's line for men was 1919?
Regardless, even a factory early wristwatch would have had soldered wire lugs.