Not a Rep but intresting non the less

[Mazz 62]

 

Hands-up if you think "James Bond" when you hear the phrase "spy watch." OK, you can all put your hands down now; your co-workers are looking at you funny.

 

It’s easy, when you’re into watches, to believe the hype and think that a) James Bond is real and that the products of (most notably) Rolex and Omega are the actual tools of real spies. Sorry to shatter your dreams guys, but that’s not the case (as far as we know, anyway).

 

Now if you happened to pick up this Rolex 6238 when it came up for for sale, don't worry – we’ve found a real spy watch for you. Only this watch doesn’t tell time. This ‘Protana’ is actually a miniature, battery operated reel-to-reel recording device manufactured by Minifon in the 1950s.

 

The item being auctioned is the Minifon Pocket Wire P-55 kit, a special wire recorder marketed directly to espionage and intelligence organisations, police departments and private detectives. The wearer would put the watch on his wrist (the watch acted as a microphone), then run the wire up his sleeve to the reel-to-reel recording device slung over his shoulder. Not a bad little system, really.

 

This watch is an amazing piece of cold-war era espionage gear, and who knows what sort of conversations it may have recorded? We have no idea, but what we do know is that Q would be impressed. The Minifon recording device, including the Protana watch is being auctioned here.

 

 

Link to the site :hodinkee

 

 

 

Amazing too think that was small and covert back in the day.

[jameo210369 0]

Great find, I think people would notice the cable coming from your watch.

[ThinkBachs 1]

 

 

This 1886 Victorian Lancaster Pocket Watch Camera

predates what I thought to be the first camera watch in 1907. It just sold at a Bonhams auction for £18,000

 

From Bonhams;

 

The Lancaster Ladies Watch Camera was brought into Bonhams by a gentleman whose grandfather had owned it originally. He was a cabinetmaker at the Birmingham-based firm J. Lancaster & Son, probably working on the many wooden cameras sold by the company. The vendor, consigning several watches to one of Bonhams’ sales, noticed that among his collection was what looked like an ordinary nickel-plated pocket watch case when closed – but when he opened it he discovered that it actually contained a tiny camera inside.

 

Lionel Hughes, Bonhams’ Camera Specialist, was delighted to come across the piece:

“This is a truly exceptional piece, and the price achieved at Bonhams today reflects this,†he explained. “The Lancaster Watch Camera was patented in October 1886 and made until 1890. Such tiny cameras were the forerunners for the ‘spy’ camera – a mechanism disguised as a different object. However, it would have been very inconvenient to use as four very small catches had to be released in order to remove the glass screen and to fit a separate metal sensitized material holder for each exposure. As a result, the model sadly sold badly and is much rarer than the improved version which came on the market in 1890. The ladies’ pattern is therefore particularly special, and only four original models are known to exist."

[Member X 91]

How cool