The “Dirty Dozen” are watches produced by the 12 British Ministry of Defence contractors during World War II who were tasked with strapping watches to the wrists of allied forces. While some of the brands are bigger and better than ever before, a few have slid into relative obscurity or the books of insolvency firms. I wanted to take a look at which of the Dirty Dozen survive today … Which of the Dirty Dozen survive today? During the Second World War, the MoD took the opinion that civilian watches weren’t up to the task of providing accurate timekeeping to their soldiers, and decided they needed more robust watches to distribute. Manufacturing industries around the globe were feeling the strain of the war-time effort, so the MoD couldn’t award the contract to a single brand, and instead offered it to 12 brands. Thankfully, most of them were conveniently based in the neutral territory of Switzerland. It’s clear that brands such as IWC, Omega, Longines, Jaeger-LeCoultre (and more recently Vertex) are all alive and kicking, but what of the other magnificent seven: Buren, Lémania, Eterna, Timor, Cyma, Record and Grana? Buren It is estimated that around 11,000 watches were produced by…
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