In 1943, Cyma unveiled its first automatic wristwatch, endowed with a 420 caliber featuring a unidirectional rotor. Cyma produced an estimated 20,000 watches. They were delivered by 1945 which was the closing period of the war, therefore many of these watches never actually saw action. A Broad Arrow (pheon) was also put on the watch to indicate British Government Issue property. Two serial numbers were engraved, one being the manufacturer’s number, and the other (with the letter) being the military store number. The watches had engraved into them the W.W.Ws, a code established by the British Army to distinguish these from other military equipment and it simply stood for Watch. This is where the “Dirty Dozen “ derives from. Out of those submitted 12 brands were chosen: Buren, Cyma, Eterna, Grana, Jaeger Le-Coultre, Lemania, Longines, IWC, Omega, Record, Timor, and Vertex. Rather than relying on one watch manufacturer, they invited many Swiss brands to build a watch to a tight specification.
Sandoz soon saw the potential of Cyma forming a business relationship with the Schwob brothers and Cyma was officially registered in 1903.ĭuring the 1940’s Britain's Military of Defence (MOD) needed watches to be issued to the Army during World War II. Sandoz moved to Tavannes in 1891, just North of Biel where he manufactured highly desirable repeaters and chronographs. In 1871, Henri Sandoz established Sandoz & Cie in Le Locle. Cyma was founded in 1862 by the brother’s Joseph Schwob and Theodore Schwob, in the town of Le Locle Switzerland.
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