MEET THE WATCH: Victorinox Swiss Air Force 9G-450 Headquarters GMT

I have to tip my hat to Victorinox Swiss Army. They took a chance with the design of their outlandish Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT watch, and came up with an extremely bold design. This watch could be the black sheep of the 9G family of watches by Swiss Air Force (an offshoot brand related to Swiss Army). The Headquarters GMT has design elements that set it apart from its 9G cousins. It was the first and last of its kind with wacky design choices never to be repeated. While it is impossible to know the exact story behind this forgotten wristwatch, we can have fun speculating.

The appearance of the Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT stirs my imagination…maybe a little too much! This watch looks like it came from outer space. As a fan of classic anime, I can almost imagine this as a prop on a futuristic show featuring space robots. As far fetched as this sounds, there is something very futuristic about the Headquarters GMT. The angles, facets, and pointed hands all remind me of the angular shapes of machinery often seen on anime shows. Perhaps this is a symptom of watching too much Robotech growing up in the 1980s, but we are a product of our childhood memories, right?

Bold, geometric shapes are the theme of this watch… just like some of my favorite sci-fi toy models. This is industrial design from an imagined future, where almost anything can be built. The Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT shows the more whimsical side of watch design. I don’t think that this watch was meant to be taken too seriously. Regardless, it is clear that the watch designer obsessed over the finer details. The resulting watch looks both futuristic and retro at the same time. We’ll look at indivdual parts that make up the whole to figure this how this was done.

What Does the Headquarters Name Mean?

Your guess is as good as mine on this point. Swiss Army/Swiss Air Force watches have a long history of being named after military jargon. Maybe you have heard of a Cavalry, Cavalier, Airboss, Centinel, Centurion, Cavalier and so on. I suppose Headquarters fits into this naming scheme. I would suspect that the GMT hand on this watch could always be set to a central time where your headquarters was located. This seems plausible. Speaking of headquarters, a wood bee moved into the boards that I use for some of my photos. This industrious guy was a busy as a… bee! I just worked around him. ha! I am happy to share as long as this keeps him from drilling holes in my house.

Extremely Pointy Hands

The first standout feature of this watch is the set of interesting hands designed for it! The Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT has hour and minute hands that are so pointy and sharp, that they figuratively poke you in the eye. These hands are like the nose of a 1953 Douglas X-3 Stiletto, which might be the strangest looking experimental aircraft of that time period. I’m not suggesting that the Swiss Air Force Headquarters watch is related to the over 60-year-old plane, but this watch is definitely related to the subject of aviation.

The lume application on these hands is interesting as well. The glowing painted sections are concentrated only in the top third and do not cover the whole hand. You might not notice this at first so take a look at the photo below to see the sunken lume pockets. The lumed tips are similar in size. in the dark, the wearer will have to figure out which hand is which by location. Luckily, the hour hand is closer to the center of the dial and the minute’s hand is closer to the indices, which have lumed dots outboard of the numbers.

Swiss Air Force Branding

When a watch has  SWISS AIR FORCE written on it, then you expect it to be related to flight operations. Ironically, these watches have nothing to do with the actual Swiss Air Force. These are basically Swiss Army watches with different branding. This is why you may see this winged logo on well known Victorinox Swiss Army models such as Airbosses, FA/18 Chronos and SeaPlanes. This can be confusing to say the least! I will write more about this branding in the future, but for now, you can refer to the unofficial history of Swiss Army watches for more detail.

Part of the 9G Family

The Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT’s official name is the 9G-450. While there are other watches in the 9G series, the Headquarters GMT does not really look like any of them. Frankly, it does not look like any other Swiss Army watch that I have seen either. This one-of-a-kind design language was used for the Headquarters GMT, but was never repeated. Does that mean the watch was a sales failure? Hmmm. That’s a tough question to answer as that info is lost to time. I have only seen one for sale… and you are looking at it here. I would consider them to be sparsely distributed, maybe even rare.

Fish Scale Bracelet

Besides the pointy handset, the Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT has one of the most creative bracelets that I have ever seen on a Swiss Army watch. The metal links have a shape that defies categorization. Each link has both curved and straight sides in a shape that is similar to the pattern a windshield wiper makes. Think of it as a sweeping arc. Another analogy would be to compare the links to fish scales. Notice that each link is asymmetrically taller on the edge closest to the watch head. This can look like a saw blade teeth when viewed from the side.

A hidden detail seen upon close observation is that the interior curved edges of each link are highly polished. The tops and bottoms of the links are brushed by comparison. The contrast between these two finishes can best be seen when the watch is on the wrist. This is when the links spread slightly to show the polished edges. This is an unexpected visual treat that adds interest to an already fascinating bracelet. Probably only the wearer will notice this.

The deployant clasp is a standard stamped-metal foldover design with an embossed Swiss Air Force logo. There is nothing fancy here, but thankfully it has micro-adjustability to help adjust the perfect fit to your wrist. Just use a toothpick to change the bracelet size if your wrist swells or contracts during the day. This adds greatly to the comfort of the watch.

Triangular Lugs

We need to talk about those pointy lugs! It should be no surprise that the lug design on the Headquarters GMT is unusual to match the rest of the watch. From the top, the lugs appear triangular. They remind me of how a child would draw the picture of a cat by using a circle for the head and two triangles for the ears. Once you see it, it will be difficult to un-see the kitty cat. Sorry about that.

The lugs are only triangular on the top and there are normaly-shaped lugs on the bottom of the watch. The lugs are drilled lugs so you woulds assume that the holes would make it easy to swap the bracelet for straps. However, I believe that a pin and locking collar and NOT spring bars hold the bracelet to the case. I cannot confirm this because I did not take the bracelet off of the watch. The lack of springbars would make a strap swap difficult or impossible.

The lugs and the bracelet are integrated into the case. In situations such as this, aftermarket straps might not fit correctly. Even if you exchanged the bespoke bracelet for leather straps, there would likely be a peculiar gap between the pointy lugs. Why would you want to get rid of the bracelet anyway? If you are gonna go freaky… then go all the way. The Headquarters GMT just would not look right without its fishscales.

If you look between the lugs, you’ll see a sliver of metal in the shape of an arc. This fills in the gap between the pointy lugs and the case. This arc repeats from the case’s edge throughout the bracelet. The Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT watch has a series of arcs and angles emanating from the central axis of the watch. Great creativity was used to design this watch. Whether you care for the style or not, you have to at least admit that it leaves an impression.

The Bezel

You might be fooled into thinking that the Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT watch has a diver’s bezel. It certainly looks like it has one, but this bezel does not move so it cannot be used to time intervals. Instead, the bezel markings should be considered as the minutes of the hour. Notice how the triangle theme from the lugs is continued onto the bezel. The angles align from the pointy lugs to the bezel markers. This is the same shape of the wings in the logo, which is not accidental. The bezel markings are creative too. Open circles indicate 5-minute intervals and dots indicate each minute in between. This is a nice twist on an old idea.

The bezel always seems to stand out in great relief against the watch case. This is because there is a black spacer between the bezel and the case. I never really noticed this until I started looking at the enlarged photos. I just thought it was a seam between the metal parts, but it’s not. This black edge visually creates a definite sepeation between case and bezel. This keeps the size case looking as thin as possible.

The Dial

The matte black dial nods to military time-telling. Notice the use of a zero from 01-09 to help you remember that breakfast is served at 06:00 military time. haha. One strange quirk of the dial design is that the orientation of these numbers changes based on where they appear on the dial. Sometimes the baseline is towards the center of the watch and other times the baseline points in the opposite direction to the outer edge. You can best see this by comparing 08 and then 09, which have opposite orientations. There are a lot of markings, but the multiple layers of information are handled well.

The Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT has a full 24-hour scale near the center of the dial. These numbers are surrounded by a rule that represents GMT time. The small, red-tipped arrow hand can be used to keep track in a different time zone, or GMT time. You can use it as an a.m./p.m indicator. The GMT hand can be set independently of local time. And, if I am telling the truth, the GMT-hand looks cool too. Swiss Army added the name of the watch to this inner circle as well in case you forgot.

There are just a few more features to mention. Covering the dial is a sapphire crystal with a built-in magnifier commonly called a cyclops. The cyclops is located over the date aperture at 4:00 and it really works. This means no more squinting to see the date! And finally, there is an extra-large crown with the Swiss cross on it. Its size makes it easy to set the time and GMT hour. There are no crown guards, and I’d normally say that this gives a watch a vintage appearance. However,  the Headquarters GMT does not look like any watch that I’ve seen from the past.

Conclusion

I estimate this watch was manufactured in 1999. I based this year on the serial number starting with 90. If you want to know the manufacture date of your Swiss Army watch, check out this article. That makes this vintage model pretty old in Swiss Army years. Remember that Swiss Army has only been making watches since 1989. While this might not be an everyday watch, I was happy to find this oddity… I mean novelty. Who knows how many Swiss Air Force Headquarters GMT were made and still survived? I’m betting that it was not a lot. For now, I’ll just wear mine and enjoy the puzzled looks on other watch collector’s faces when they wonder “what the heck is that thing!” There is nothing better than stumping another watch collector. haha