Laco Pilot Watches

Laco Pilot Watches are Fliegers descended from the observation watches (B-Uhren) that Laco made for Luftwaffe pilots during the Second World War. Founded in Pforzheim in 1925 as Lacher & Co., it was one of five makers of those watches, alongside A. Lange & Söhne, Stowa, Wempe and IWC. The wartime watches were 55 mm across, had crowns big enough to turn with gloves on, and carried FL 23883 on the case, a designation for the type of instrument rather than a serial number.

Two dial layouts come from that period. Type A has hour markers from 1 to 11 and a triangle flanked by two dots at 12. Type B puts the minutes, in five-minute steps, on an outer ring and the hours on an inner ring.

The Original stays closest to the wartime watch: straight lugs, a dark sandblasted case, a large crown, FL 23883 on the case side and no Laco logo on the dial, at 39, 42 and 45 mm, with the Replika 55 at full wartime size. Leipzig is the hand-wound 42 mm and Münster the automatic; Westerland and Saarbrücken are the hand-wound and automatic 45 mm. In the 2016 Erbstück watches the automatics used Laco's calibre 24, based on the ETA 2824-2, and the hand-wound models its calibre 01, based on the ETA 2801-2. The Basic has a brushed case, softly rounded lugs, a more discreet crown, the logo on the dial and, today, a Miyota automatic.

Erbstück, German for heirloom, is an Original aged by hand so it looks like a used military watch. Blaue Stunde models swap the black dial for blue, and the 45 mm Dortmund, Friedrichshafen, Saarbrücken and Westerland have also been made in bronze. Several Special Models take aircraft names: the DC-3, the Spirit of St. Louis that Charles Lindbergh flew to Paris in 1927, and the Bell X-1 that Chuck Yeager took past the speed of sound in 1947. The Navy Watch Casablanca and Monaco are not Fliegers: Laco sells them as Navy Watches.