query on old pocket watch

[Frank Menez]

Lisburn is 8 miles SW of Belfast Ireland


Frank Menez

[Kent]

k bain:

Your watch sounds like a 'private label,' or 'contract,' watch. Just about all the watch companies, including the Swiss firms, would mark both the watch movements and/or the dials in just about any manner for any customer who wished to pay for the service. I don't have any exact references for the costs, but I've heard (read?) that, for some companies, if five or more watches were ordered, there was no charge for marking the movements. Special dials were said to cost 25 or 50 cents each.

It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the movement, the clearer and sharper, the better. We may be able to identify it by the shape of the plates. In trying to open the watch, you might find the information in "How To Open A Pocket Watch Case" (http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/opencase.txt) useful.

A digital camera would be very helpful. For an open-face, screw back & bezel watch you can get good results by placing the movement on a flatbed scanner. A hunting-case movement, or an open-face movement in a hinged case would have to be removed from the case for this to work. Otherwise, its back to the camera.

Larry Jones has written up a useful article on Image Posting (http://www.larjones.com/data/imagehelp.html), which may be helpful.

Or, when you click on the Reply button, at the lower right-hand corner of the bottom post in a thread, the Reply To: box that opens has a toolbar at its top. The right-hand icon on the toolbar is a paperclip. Clicking upon the paperclip icon will open a box that allows you to select a picture file to attach to your post. Use the Browse button to navigate to the location in which the picture file resides on your disk drive and select it. Since this only permits one picture per reply, you can reply once for each picture.

If you have a problem posting the picture(s), you can attach it (them) to an e-mail to me (you can get my email address by clicking on my name in the upper left-hand corner of this post and viewing my Public Profile) and I'll post it (them) for you.

Its also helpful if you can post all the markings that are on the movement (the "works") in case they can't be seen in the picture(s).

Good luck,
Kent

That guy down in Georgia :smile: