Very Rare Unissued Circa 1992 SANDY 490 Military Watch (MIL-W-46374F TYPE 1) by Stocker & Yale

This watch is a very rare unissued Circa 1992 SANDY 490 Military Watch (MIL-W-46374F TYPE 1) by Stocker & Yale. They are difficult to find in used condition but a new one in its original box is a rarity and this one only turned up because an ex serviceman who buys watches from us found it in a drawer and asked us to sell it on his behalf. We have given the watch a quick wind and it runs so everything is fine with the movement. The ex serviceman who found it advised it was issued to him in the early 1990’s when he was deployed at a U.S base in Wiesbaden, Germany and he said it was still in the original sealed plastic pouch when he found it amongst some old kit so clearly he never even took it out of the packaging. We phoned around to find one of these in new condition amongst various watch companies we know that sell military watches and were unsuccessful and were told they are virtually impossible to locate “new and unissued” which confirms this watch is a rarity.

The SandY 490 is among the higher quality MIL-W-46374 watches ever issued although the composite case does not look overly exciting at first glance. The watch uses a fully maintainable ETA-2801 movement which also has a hacking function. The watch also uses GTLS tubes although with an average life of 10 years these will be somewhat past their sell by date.

The caseback of watch of this type follows the pattern below below:

Caseback Markings US-Issue MIL-W-46374F SandY 490

The MIL-W-46374F TYPE 1 specification was set down in October 1991 and there were eight different watches covered by this specification and this one is in red below.