Civilian Mk11 1st batch 1950s-60s

Were the watches in the 1st batch just"cobbled" together from spare parts? Did
IWC have a data base on these watches?

It would be advisable to first conduct some research in easily accessible
sources on the Mk. 11 and what is was used for before asking questions here
obviously born by your interest in a watch which is by no means anything
like an original Mk. 11.

Best regards

Th. Koenig

i've read the MAN IS NOT LOST article and its sucsessor and the MARK11
article. I would like to now more. Do you have an additional source to
recommend?"

In the first article you mentioned it is clearly stated that the Mk. 11 does
hack and the depicted RAF spec says it as well. So I do not understand your
question, whether there are any Mk. 11 around, which do not hack. It is alike
an US muscle car with a V8 hemi engine. If it lacks the hemi combustion room
it is by definiton no V8 hemi, but a simple V8 standard engine commanding
exceedingly lower prices.

White dialled Mk. 11 are simply original RAF Mk. 11 with a non-original dial.
That as well is described in both articles. If the watch not only suffers from
a non-original dial but as well from a non-original movement it is simply no
Mk. 11 at all.

And it does not take to much work to figure out, that you can't build a Mk. 11
from spares for different reasons beginning with the simple fact that the
hacking feature needs some place to accomodate the necessary parts and some
more threaded holes to fix such parts. So the hacking version of the Cal. 89
has a different base plate compared to the non-hacking base plate. As there
were no hacking Cal. 89 before the Mk. 11 in 1948/1949 it was impossible to
build Mk. 11 form spares. And to regulate a watch to the Mk. 11 standard does
not work with a movement build from spares. You need to have special parts
used only in the Mk. 11, mentioned as well in the articles you quoted. And to
acchieve this accuracy all parts must show very narrow tolerances just as the
IWC Quality Extra pocket watches had. It should be obvious, that you can't
build a high-end watch by simply visiting the spares store, getting there some
spares out of the shelves and built from those spares a wrist watch exceeding
all other military and civilian watches in serial production by far in terms
of accuracy.

My impression is you found a "cheap" white dialled non-hacking Cal 89
pretending to be a Mk. 11 and your wish to have found a cheap Mk. 11 makes you
neglect, that what you found is not a "cheap Mk. 11", but "expensive scrap" of
which maybe some parts can be used to repair a normal Cal. 89 or maybe a Mk.
11. No member of this Forum would buy such a watch and if you buy it and
later
on try to sell it, you will have difficulty to find a buyer. At least no buyer
will consider your watch as Mk. 11 or Mk. 11 with minor issues. In high-end
watches originality is everything, even minor issues result in substantial
loss of value.

So far regarding mil watches. Regarding civ watches nearly everything said
above applies to civ. watches as well, especially that they all hack and have
the black soft-iron dial. As described in the later article quoted by you only
one white soft-iron dial variant exists, but nobody knows for sure, whether it
is original or has been replaced. When you mention the "first batch" of
civilian Mk. 11: What do you deem to be the first civilian batch? There were
no military Mk. 11 batches on the one hand and civ Mk. 11 batches on the other
hand. There were simply Mk. 11 batches, but after 1981 when the Mk. 11 was
listed out there were no sales to armed forces any longer, so they all went to
the civilian market.

Regards

Th. Koenig

Thank you for the most definitive commentary on the subject since reading the
2 previously mentioned articles plus the one suggesting 10 rules to consider
when purchasing a Mk11. I don't own a white dialed Mk 11. I do however have a
very nice 1952 standard IWC Mk11 and the JLC but have become fascinated with
the civilian model as used by V. Fuchs and E.Hillary in the Antarctic trek of
1957 and also by the test pilot of the Concord. Again thank you for more
useful infomation. Best wishes, Bob.