Only 400 of these watches “Award Watches” were produced, sadly many have been melted down for their gold value and a lot fewer remain, especially in such good condition. The watch houses Lemania’s Automatic Caliber 4651 movement.

ABOVE: Two Lemania stopwatches Co-Branded ‘TROY’ – Sold by Troy Watch. These were used both in the mines and also on the surface during safety training and sports events.

BELOW: Another example of Troy’s gold watches is this Lemania with a CH27 movement (most popularly known as the Omega 321)- Branded by TROY and housed in an elegant 18 karat gold case.

The Piguet family maintained close ties to Lemania and, two generations down the line, John Piguet of Piguet-Kahn Jewellers was back in Switzerland with his two brothers, doing a watchmaking apprenticeship next to the Lemania factory- where they spent a lot of time.

It is unclear whether Troy Watch was responsible for supplying the South African Air Force with their infamous Lemania 5012, the Lemania 1872 and the Lemania 2220, an automatic chronograph, a manual wind chronograph and a single-pusher manual wind chronograph respectively. It is possible that the SAAF Ordered their Lemania 5012, Lemania 1872 and Lemania 2220 straight from Lemania Watch Co in Switzerland, although this depends on the years ordered as there was an “Arms Embargo” imposed on the sale of military equipment to South Africa. It is known however that TROY Watch did supply pilots with dash clocks.

These watches have also been produced in very limited numbers- More information on these watches can be found in my other articles on the site. (Click on image above for articles).

TROY WATCH WORKS also branded their own watch straps. On the left and center are two Troy watch straps, On the right is a New Old Stock Solvil watch with a ‘Troy Watch‘ branded strap (Center and right)

(Above: A large TROY watch with an Eta caliber movement.)

Troy Watch closed in 2000 after over a century of providing beautiful dress watches and essential tool watches as well as timekeepers to the mines, military and many others. As more of these interesting and rare timepieces surface, they are becoming much more sought after by South African history enthusiasts and watch collectors alike.

As more of these interesting timepieces, as well as the information regarding them surfaces, more will be added to the article.

Many thanks to John Piguet of Piguet-Kahn Jewellers for sharing your knowledge on the topic, and to James Taylor of Origin Time for compiling the information.

A very exciting and unusual find. Unique to TROY-PIGUET Jewellers in South Africa. Its the first one i have come across that has the full name of both TROY and PIGUET. As you can see it has OMEGA DNA to the point where the Omega reference of 145.019 (An Omega Seamaster “Soccer”) is still present, and a new Lemania reference 9658 has been stamped. You can see that the Omega Company details have been removed from the inside caseback too. It is interesting that the serial number of the serial Lemania calibre 1873 is 30 million, which in Omega terms would be approx 1969. I have yet to work out if this has any correlation or relation to Omega serials of their equivalent 861 movements of the time.

Automatic Eugene Meylan watch from 1930. The legendary invention by the founder of Glycine Watches SA, Eugene Meylan. The module which could be mounted on any hand winding 8.75 lignes caliber and turn them to self- winding ( automatic ) watches. Patent applied for in 12 October 1930 and registered in 3 August 1931.
This watch is still functioning after 83 years proving the durability and product quality of Glycine timepieces.The EMSA mark next to Glycine Automatic on the module can not be found anymore after 1935 therefore are scarce to find. Apparently, If you see one of these you are lucky, if you own one of these examples you are even more so!