THE FIRST OF 25...........

....The second shooting competition was organised in 1905, but IWC was not asked to produce a Schützenuhr..!

.....The third one was organised in 1909 and yes, IWC made for this competition the Schützenuhr in silver. I was the only one. In 1897 a watch was issued to celebrate a "Turnfest" ( gym competition), but this is not a Schützenuhr.

...This is the 1909 IWC Schaffhausen Schützenuhr. The picture was kindly provided by Rolf Birkenkämper. This watch had a cal 57 movement....

.....This is the interesting part of the Schaffhausen Schützenuhr.
One can recognise "Helvetia", harvesting grapes. Further one can see the Munot castle on the hill. And there is also the Schaffhauser ram. Many of us who have visited Shaffhausen know that until today grapes are grown on the slopes of Munot hill...

....Finally, is there any hope that IWC will manufacture Schützenuhren in the futere? I guess not. The reason is quite obvious. Pocket Watches have been definitively removed from the "current" collection. Nobody buys a pocket watch for daily use. PW collectors buy them, because they are an important part of the watch history, as are the military watches and the ship chronometers. Pw's are pieces of art on its own, even if many parts have been engine made, as is the case for IWC pw's. PW's tell us the story of struggle,development, failure, improvement and success during the past 150 years. Even now that we know that Schaffhausen is going to organise another Schützenfest in 2014, the likelihood of issuing another IWC watch for this event is very unlikely.
I have to thank Rolf Birkenkämper for sending images from his Schützenuhren and all the forumers who were interested in this thread.
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc)

Hi Craig,
The second Frauenfeld Schützenuhr (1935) is extremely rare. I do not own it. In the literatur ( R.Meis, IWC-Uhren. Die "Schaffhauser" und ihre Geschichte), no more information is provided other than what I show in this thread.
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

Thanks for the followup Adrian. Any idea what was offered as prize for the Schützenfeste in Schaffhausen before IWC was available? I saw an amount of CHF 70.000 on the 1909 Schutzenfest image. How much would that be nowadays? It sounds like quite an amount!

Kind regards,

Clemens

Thank you Adrian for incredible thread! I got a lot of very interesting information!
And hope guys from IWC also read it and produce something for the next Schuetzenfest. They still have time))

Hi Clemens,
I am not sure but I guess the Swiss had to rise an amount of money before they were allowed to organise a Schützenfest. Once the sum was provided or secured by sponsors, the party could be arranged ? Another possibility could be that the amount of money listed on the posters was the prize money to be earned. I simply don't know. Maybe Ralf Ehrismann or Rolf Birkenkämper could tell us ?
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

Clemens,
Your question about what prizes could be won, other than pocket watches, can be answered with much certainty. As is seen today, special engraved cups and medals were the reward for the best marksmen. In fact the (auction) trade in coins and medals is still vivid. In other words, like watch collectors there are collectors for these special items, which many times cost more than a pocket watch. The "scenes" depicted on watches, coins and medals were the same.
During the very early days "natural" rewards like a pig, an ox or a fur coat could be won.
Kind regards,
Adrian.

Thanks Adrian for your answers. I remeber a story about a Dutch marksmen group (club?) who lost all of their medals, some over 200 years old due to an error at the bank where this was supposed to be in a safety deposit box. I haven't heard if they found their treasures back or not.

Kind regards,

Clemens

Wonderful thread, with a watch that I can contribute, as I have seen no documentary of my Cal 57, 19 Lignes, Deutsches Bundesschiessen in the "Freien und Hansastadt Hamburg" from 1909.
The Bundesschiessen took place from the 11 - 18. July 1909.

The watch Cal 57, movement No. 423340.

Hamburger Bundesschiessen 1909

Just a short comment on Swiss shoting events:

There are mainly 2 types of it

"National" = "Eidg.(enössisches) Schützenfest"
"Local" = xyz "Kantonal Schützenfest " from a Kanton.

The main events are the "National Shooting" events theoretically held avery 5 Years. As "1890 Eidg. Schützenfest Frauenfeld"

For the local "Kantonal" Schützenfest from every canton (we have 26 of it
20 full and 6 half Kantons) so "xyz" could be every of the Kantons as "Schaffhauser Kantonalschützenfest 1909".

Not all of them have create shooting watches.

The national events are more important and more watches are ordered for those events. But what is funny, the rearer "Kantonal" watches are less important an not lower valued.

Why? i dont really know it, maybe becaus there are in total so many.

Kind regards

Ralph

or should that be 26?

As suggested Here

Great information, thanks again for sharing your expertise and getting other
experts to contribute too!

Kind regards,

Bob

It has been really quit in this forum posts for some time now.

So let's show some of the rare pieces ;-)

Best regards from Austria

Beautiful post here!

What an awesome and historic set of watches!

All Schutzenuhren?

Hello Tilo,

yes they are all Schutzenuhren. I have 17 but not all IWC

gasteiger.name/engineering/uhrensammlung.html

so thats why I only postet the IWC here in the forum.

Best regards derTiroler