Why "true" GMT

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I like my GMTs because they have a pretty colored 4th hand with some lume on the end in the shape of an arrow. 

When I actually need to know what time it is in other time zones for work, I bust out my iPhone. Traveler or Caller GMT? Don’t know, don’t care. Just give me my socially acceptable male jewelry!

Great explanation 

Snobbery....people will dress it up differently, but if Rolex had gone the "caller" GMT route, that would be a "true" GMT today.

A better distinction is "office", and "traveller", as they better represent the reasons for wearing a particularstyle of GMT. 

What nobody really talks about is the fact that a 12 hour bezel is a cheaper, and more practical way to track two timezones. 

Edit: before anyone says something, if it wasn't about snobbery why "true", when "traveller" makes more sense, and is more descriptive?

Traveller/Flyer/Caller/Trackeer they all make total sense - but why "true"?

Why that very specific word?

Personally, I go with tracker and traveler because it rolls off the tongue nicely.

If you are traveling a true GMT is a pretty handy thing.  If you don't travel its still a must have complication IMHO.

"True" because they're most useful for travelers, the pilots they were allegedly originally made for. Traveling is cooler than staying in one place and tracking somebody else. And they're apparently harder to make, or at least are more expensive; more expensive and harder to come by is naturally "truer."

I personally prefer traveller and caller GMT myself and they both have an audience.

Perhaps a nomenclature from the past and a nod to it's original purpose, intended audience and all the accoutrements therein.

No doubt this is the result of clever marketing and positioning of the "true" GMT over the years. We wish to be a pilot, jet-setting around the globe to exotic locations. And if we are to be this, we must have the original traveller's watch (preferably a GMT Master). Jeez, I've even bought into this hype at different stages of my collecting journey.  

I can't say much about build quality between traveller vs office GMTs, but I guess there is also this stigma with the caller GMT having the "cheaper" GMT movement and therefore cannot be as good as traveller GMTs (I'm no historian, but the first 6542's may have indeed had a similar GMT movement to what we'd term a "Caller" GMT today).

I have always taken it to be ”true” as in Veritas. If theres no need to reset the time at each port of call, then your expensive cosc movement isn’t being interrupted as you travel. Until recently I haven’t even considered the caller gmt as being “false” or fake. Just for a different purpose. 

there actually is a false gmt - and understanding that is to understand the snobbery in the current use of true

the original GMT master was a "false" gmt

Nothing more to add but a picture for attention 😉 #TGIF 

What makes one true and the other false is called marketing in business and propaganda elsewhere.

Why does no one remember Glycine invented the “true” GMT before Rolex?!

Same reason nobody remembers Rolex didn't invent the dive watch...they're got a better story.

Im sure this is discussed enough already but I think callers GMT and travelers GMT makes more sense. For the travelers GMT you leave the GMT hand on Home time and can quickly adjust the local time. The other one is cheaper and easier to produce and it’s not that important to be able to change time zones quickly because it’s aimed at people that stay in one but need to track another time zone. 

I don‘t know the origin of the term ‘true’ GMT, so can’t make a judgement if it is meant as a perjorative. Playing devil‘s advocate maybe it means a movement capable of keeping your time ‘true’ as it allows you to adjust the local time without interfering/stopping the time keeping.

ok - so that might explain "true travel watch" or "true local time watch" but not "true GMT".

Funny, I'd go precisely the other way and claim those early watches were the 'false' GMT movements.  After all the movement didn't really show GMT or a second time zone at all - on its own it was just local time converted to 24 hours.  Instead to get GMT, the watch needed a kluge, a rotating bezel to change the time reference because the movement could achieve it on its own.

otoh having a few of these I should say they are in fact easier to use than either a tracker or traveller gmt.

I guess it is - just the snobbery in the term frustrates me and to see it being perpetuated and solidified annoys me.

Just as in a recent post some people don't like the term 'collector' and its connotations (which paradoxically is a word I don't really have an issue with but am using less and less because others don't like it) I feel the word "true" is, 99% percent of the time, less than helpful.

The term "True" isn't a good description and it brings a negative element and divisivness to discussions about movements.  Traveler and flyer are better names.  I'm a corporate pilot for a living and much of what we do literally revolves around GMT / UTC / ZULU time.  Our duty times, flight plans, ATC clearances and weather forecasts are all issued in GMT.   It's used as a constant and the watch movements that keep it constant are much more functional in that realm.  A traveler movement stays running and never needs to be hacked to change time zones.  Most people don't need that functionality and the caller GMT's work just fine.  For me at work, caller GMT's are almost completely useless.  Most pilots that use them never change the local time and mentally adjust accordingly.   If I'm on a 30 minute flight to a different time zone, I don't want to rotate the GMT hand 23 positions to make it correct again.  That same crown position usually makes the date move when turned the opposite direction on a caller GMT.  If that accidentally get's moved the wrong way,  it's 30 positions of date plus 23 positions of the GMT hand.  On the traveler GMT in that scenario, it's one detent / click of the hour hand with no hacking required.  

fwiw Glycine did invent the GMT after working closely with the U.S. Air Force to develop a robust pilots watch that could have more than one time zone. It was released in 1953, a full year before the GMT Master, which was built by Rolex on a commission from PanAm

A true GMT is just a type of GMT movement. The other is sometimes called an “Office” GMT or “Collar” GMT. there is no false GMT and no description is meant to be a pejorative over the True. 

If it was actually about one word to describe its use, the word would be "traveller" not "true", even if we buy into the notion it's short for "true traveller". 

I'm not saying people that call them "true" GMTs are bad people, but they are specifically using loaded language... 

Hey, my job isn't to protect people's feelings. 

If you choose to use a term that is clearly a pejorative, based on a weak "explanation", that's on you. 

I don't own either type of GMT, as I find a rotating 12 hour bezel is superior in pretty much every way... As someone that actually uses Zulu time daily at work both in the office, and on the road. 

It is not "true" as opposite of "false". It is "True (to) GMT" as in additional hand not being reset/moved as it is always supposed to be true to the "Zulu" time - a time at the Zero Meridian, commonly abbreviated as "GMT" (Greenwich Mean Time). Currently, it's also known as Coordinated Universal Time or Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). It is not even supposed to be "home/office" time but UTC... of course we all use it to set either the time of a time zone where home is if we are traveling, or a time of clients/colleagues currently overseas...

Am revisiting this thread as I think the OP was on to something in the zeitgeist that I hadn’t picked up at the time.

Now however I have noticed    the true gmt term popping up all over YouTube and podcasts. That isn’t a problem in itself, but what has really started to bug me is the reverence that is given to the traveller gmt movement as though it is the holy grail. “But is it a true gmt movement?” seems to be the refrain, taking up from yester years “But is it an in-house movement”.

For travelling a traveller gmt is very handy. You can set the local time without moving the gmt hand.

For setting a second timezone in another location  a caller gmt has the advantage that you can change the gmt hand without affecting the local time.

I would like to change the usage of true gmt to mean that the gmt hand is set to gmt (utc) and not another time zone offset, regardless of the mechanism. Wishful thinking I know! 

in a way your ideal GMT already exists - you just described a worldtimer function but with a single 'other' place - where once you set local, the other zone is fixed.