100,000 km watch question

[kafer53]

Hi All,
I have a Laco Sport 100,000 km VW watch with body and dash badges and small lapel pin. It came in the little red laco sport box.
Question I have is about the watch.
Below the VW logo and wreath there is a number. Obviously a serial # comes to mind. Would this be the case and the VIN# for the car that was awarded with the 100,000 watch and set?
Any info?
Thanks Paul
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1953 Zwitter 11C (L73)

[René R.]

Can you post a picture? I have a Mauthe, and I used to have a Laco, but neither has anything other than the usual logo and 100,000km marking. I've never seen any other markings in photos of watches offered for sale here or on eBay.

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Gone but not forgotten: 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1966) - another 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1996)

[kafer53]

Here are some pictures. When I look at the #, it comes up Jan/Feb 1953. It looks to read: 443587
Could this be a vin#?

I bought it from a local flea market / antique shop in the little red Laco Sport box with gold lapel VW pin and two body badges St. Christopher and VW logo 100,000km round badges. Fellow I bought from said it was from around 1957-58 and he got it from an older widow who's husband owned an old car but that was all he knew. Can anyone help shed some light on this.
Paul

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1953 Zwitter 11C (L73)

[René R.]

Curious. From all evidence I've seen, VW didn't stamp numbers on 100K watches. It was quite common for watch companies to stamp a serial number or stock number on case backs, but the Laco I owned in the past didn't have that. I found a picture of that one in my files:

However, looking at classifieds on TheSamba now, I found this Laco, with the number in a straight line rather than curved:

But then there's this Laco currently for sale:

And this:

So obviously they're very inconsistent.

I'm not sure what the number on yours means, but I continue to doubt it has anything to do with a VIN. The position of that number is slightly off-center and doesn't quite fit with the rest of the engraving so it would not likely have been done at the same time as the VW engraving. It's more likely a number that Laco used for its own identifying purposes. It's possible they stamped their own serial numbers at some point, but stopped using that on engraved watches. Just a guess, but it would seem to make sense.
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Gone but not forgotten: 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1966) - another 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1996)

[René R.]

Here's a men's version by Junghans:

And two ladies' versions, one by Stowa and the other by Modena:

These aren't Laco but I would imagine that if VW was marking VINs on award watches, they would do it on all of them, regardless of which company made them. The 100K award logo is the same on all the different watches.
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Gone but not forgotten: 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1966) - another 1950 Hoffman split (restored in 1996)

[kafer53]

Does anyone have any more information?
Paul
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1953 Zwitter 11C (L73)

[usariemen]

Those where serial numbers of the watch makers.
Not car VINs.
VW really was not able to get down to such a detail when they gave out these watches.
Those where at least just a kind of promotion gifts. Engraving each for a specific car would had been way too complicated and expensive.
Especially in the late days of the Mauthe and Laco watches.
The numbers of given out watches grew over the years so much that VW changed from "better" ones in the early years like Junghans or Porta to the cheap Mauthe and Laco brands in the end.
The costs where too high. So taking care to match each watch to a certain car was impossible.
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Master of my domain!

[kafer53]

Thanks for the info everyone. I still like my watch 🙂Paul
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1953 Zwitter 11C (L73)

[kafer53]