A very Rare Example CWC ‘Fab Four’ British Royal Airforce, Issued Chronograph from 1974

In the late 1960s and early 1970s military organisations across the world were looking for more commercially viable timepieces for their service men and women. The result of this was the creation of watches over a decade by four brands Hamilton, CWC, Newmark and Precista – The Fab Four.

Despite the change in specs, these watches followed the specifications of its predecessor, the Lemania Mono-pusher, and remained housed in the 39mm asymmetric stainless-steel case.

Also, instead of one chronograph pusher, there are now two, and the well-made workhorse movement, the Valjoux 7733 now powers the watch.

What’s on Offer

This 1974 variant of the CWC Fab Four was from one of the earlier production runs of the two-register chronograph that began production in 1973 and would go on to be put into production for another 8 years to supply the British military alongside Hamilton, Newmark and Presista. The first generation like this one of ours, featured the old logo without the oval and the numerals 2, 4, 8 and 10 are partially covered by two large sub-counters. This particular dial is immaculate, no blemishes can be seen on the stunning black and the numerals have consistently patinated to a cream colour making them stand out. One thing to note is that CWC also supplied very limited amounts of these watches between 1974 and 1975 with non-tritium lume dials for use on nuclear submarines.

The 38.5mm stepped case, reminiscent of its predecessor the Lemania single pusher features two pushers instead of one on either side of an oversized crown. Only minimal wear can be found on the mid-case barring one slightly deeper scratch on the bottom left lug. The watch was also purposely manufactured with fixed lug bars to increase its robustness while in the field.

One thing that stayed consistent throughout the production of the ‘Fab Four’ watches was the use of the Valjoux 7733 movement. A highly revered manual wind chronograph movement that was utilised in all four of the ‘Fab Four’ watches.

This CWC watch has recently undergone a complete service from the specialist military watchmaker John Senior adding another benefit to this already super rare piece.

The fact that is one of the earlier runs and that it was issued in exactly 1974 makes it the perfect birthyear piece or gift for someone reaching a 50th birthday this year.

I would highly recommend checking out the site CWC Addict as it has been a very useful source for researching the origins of this watch, we have also included a URL below.

https://cwcaddict.com/chronograph-mech7733