Glycine Airman Purist

I have the Airman 18 purist but not the one you show.Try Ashford.

Does the hour hand revolve once per day in your model as well? I do like the hands in the model I posted though.

Gnomon watches out of Singapore usually has good deals on Glycine watches and they ship internationally. I’ve had good purchase experiences with them.

I don't get it. Why does it have a 24hr dial and a 24hr bezel when it's clearly doesn't have a fourth hand to track a second timezone?

It doesn't need to. The hour hand is the GMT hand. For a second time zone, just turn the bezel.

Rolex' additional hand was an afterthought to modify the Submariner to a GMT watch without many changes. Even the movement alteration was allegedly simple.

(Another Rolex afterthought that has since become an accepted standard is the magnifying glass over the date window.)

The dial inscriptions made me imagine:

"Go to sleep! It's mearly Glycine Airman o'clock!" 😀

This watch is available on both Ashford and Gnomon, and they ship internationally. Ashford is probably the best for you since they ship from the US.

It wasn’t an afterthought — the GMT Master (edit: Ref 16750) used the first ‘true’ / ‘traveler’ GMT movement, and other than a proper world time, it’s the more complex movement and convenient GMT for frequent travelers. Just because they stuck to their design language doesn’t make it a simple alteration or afterthought — and if it wasn’t an effective solution, it wouldn’t be the most copied implementation out there for tracking three time zones (the bezel rotates too, a la the original Airman).

The 1953 Glycine Airman was capable of telling the time in multiple time zones via a 24-hour bezel (and AM/PM indicator), and while not the first dual-time watch — your have to go a lot further back than that, the 1925 Longines Zulu Time was I think the first ever dual time watch — it was an innovation. The Rolex GMT Master Ref 16750 innovated further, being the first watch to use a dedicated independent ‘true’ 24-hour hand to track local/home time.

Other factoids: Glycine’s small hand (the tail) was added in 1955 to the minute hand, and then moved to the hour hand in 1957 to enable tracking in 12-hour format; the 1953 original relied solely on the 24-hour bezel and 24-hour dial. with

Source (Glycine’s historical archive): https://glycine-watch.ch/history

Horage’s History of the GMT watch: https://www.shop.horage.com/forum/k2-english/history-of-the-gmt-where-supersede-fits-in

Source (Glycentennial): https://glycintennial.com/glycine-airman

My reference to the afterthought was with the genesis of the GMT Master, which never had a traveller GMT movement. That has been the Rolex GMT Master II. The GMT Master had the 24h hand slaved to the 12h hand. A "simple GMT" or "proto-GMT", perhaps? How do watchmakers call it?

And then they stuck with the design. Just because they stuck with it and we accepted it, because it does look cool, doesn't mean it was designed from the ground up as a GMT watch, because it wasn't.

Thanks for the Longines watch info, I didn't know that. I did know about Glycine gaining the fourth hand later on, but I didn't find it relevant to the argument.

And now I'll look into your sources. I'll edit wherever I'm wrong.

It's a really nice piece. Definitely a historically important watch.

Actually the GMT Master Ref 16750 was the first to introduce the quickset local GMT, before the GMT Master II, however I stand corrected re: the original release (edited to correct); based on your initial reply it appeared you were referring to Rolex GMT’s in general, and from that perspective I disagree with you. The 3075 movement used in the 16750 GMT Master (pre-GMT Master II) was designed from the ground up specifically to provide a more effective yet simpler to read travel time functionality, and that’s where I disagree with the word ‘afterthought’. No argument here, just a difference in opinion; that they were able to technically accomplish this within their existing design language, maintaining the aesthetic while improving the functionality by as much as they did is no mean feat.

Yes, I agree, this is a finer detail depending on the point of view. Engineering is a compromise and sometimes you plan ahead, sometimes you have to make do with what you've got, sometimes you start from scratch. AFAIK, Rolex did the second thing and they did very well with it. And that evolved into "building on the heritage".

Their design language was still very new back then. Not even ten years old, regarding tool watches. I don't know if they even considered it much... original Daytona and Explorer 2 look very different from the divers.

They've got that watch, right now, at Ashford for $700.

I have an older DC-4 model that’s very similar. It’s one of my favorites.

The one you’re looking for can be purchased at a great price here:

https://www.ashford.com/glycine-gl0477.html

Yes that's why it's called a purist as opposed to a GMT.

That's a GMT, not a purist.

I'm fully aware that the watch is a GMT as opposed to a Purist. However, for all intents and purposes, other than the dial being a 12 hour dial as opposed to a 24 hour dial and the extra hand, the case and other design of the watch are essentially the same.

As a fan of purist 24 hour watches I think that , despite similar appearences the 2 watches are vastly different. Like a Seamaster quartz vs. automatic-they look the same but are completely different watches.