Columbus Kings

[John Cote]

Hi all

Time for the July edition of the "Interstate Time Watch of the Month". Here are some pictures of a 21, 23, and 25 jewel Columbus Kings.

http://www.interstatetime.com/WatchOTM/WatchOTM-7-01.htm

John Cote

http://www.interstatetime.com


Link restored ... thanks John for another great thread!

[John Cote]

Hi all,

Time for the July edition of the "Interstate Time Watch of the Month". Here are some pictures of a 21, 23, and 25 jewel Columbus Kings.
http://www.interstatetime.com/WatchOTM/WatchOTM-Main.htm

JohnCote
http://www.interstatetime.com

[This message has been edited by John Cote (edited 07-01-2001).]

[Kent]

John:

These are really nice. Thanks for posting them.

Kent

[Jacke Chilson]

John I am green nice watches bought tears to my old eyes thanks for posting.;-)

[Steve Maddox]

Absolutely beautiful! What a great set!



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Steve Maddox
VP, NAWCC Chapter #62
North Little Rock, Arkansas

[rrstd]

Check out how close the three serial numbers are.

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[Steve Maddox]

R.J.,

I believe that all the Columbus Kings and Railway Kings with 21 or more jewels, are from a special serial number block between 500,001 and 506,000. I have a 23 jewel Railway King (HC), whose serial number is in that same range.

SM

[Kent]

Oh come on Steve,

Please share the S/N and details with us. How is the dial signed? With "21 Jweels"? Roman or Arabic?

Kent

[This message has been edited by Kent (edited 07-01-2001).]

[Steve Maddox]

Kent,

I'll be more than happy to share the details of my 23 jewel Columbus Railway King (in fact, I sent them to Paul Heffner a while back for future publication in the "Bulletin"). At the moment, however, the watch is with most of my others in a safety deposit box at the biggest bank in Little Rock, and my serial number list is in the safe at my shop, which is on the other side of town (I am now at home).

As for the dial, it's apparently not the one originally made for it. It's a blue and white porcelain multicolor type, with the words "New Columbus" printed on it in block print. Since this dial is also rare, my guess is that it was probably installed on the watch at the original time of sale, and has been on it ever since. The watch appears to be original in every way, but it was purchased from a Little Rock estate, and I have no actual history on it.

SM

[Larry Jones 98326]

Here's another. For you experts, this one has a cap jewel on the barrel - normal??


http://www.larjones.com/images/a46.jpg


Larry

[John Cote]

Larry,

I can't really see from the picture, but how is the rest of this watch jeweled? None of the Kings in my photo have a cap jewel on the barrel. The 21 has a setting to make it look like it has a jeweled barrel but there is no jewel. It has cap jewels on the pallet fork and escape wheel like a normal 21j watch. The 23 ads hole jewels on the barrel.

I would say yours is a weird config. I guess since most of these extra jewels are fluff anyway, they could do what ever they wanted.

JohnCote

[Larry Jones 98326]

John,

The rest of the jeweling configuration was as you would normally expect on a 21 jewel (cap jewels on pallet and escape wheel arbors), but I never checked the dial side. The cap jewel on the barrel didn't look very functional, but looked original.

Larry

[John Cote]

Larry,

It looks original to me, but wouldn't that make it at least 22 jewels?

JC

[Larry Jones 98326]

John,

The watch is already gone so I can't check, but my guess is that one of the cap jewels may have been omitted from the dial side to keep the count to 21. I found the setup very odd - not sure I've ever seen a cap jewel on a barrel arbor before...

Larry

[Steve Maddox]

Kent,

The serial number of my CRK is 503431, and I made a special trip to the bank Monday so I could get it and make some scans for you. Perhaps you may want to use this one as well in an upcoming Bulletin article, as you are the Ball 999 Canadian Montgomery pictures I sent you in reply to another recent request.

This watch was a gift to me from my mother and father on my 30th birthday. I'm sorry that the quality of my "scanner photography" doesn't compare with the images John posted, but I did the best I could. The first link is the movement and dial, and for anyone interested, the second is the case. I guess I should replace that bow, shouldn't I?
http://members.aol.com/nevarietur/My23CRKmvmt.JPG
http://members.aol.com/nevarietur/My23CRK.JPG



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Steve Maddox
VP, NAWCC Chapter #62
North Little Rock, Arkansas

[John Cote]

It is interesting that the SN of Steve's RR-King is closer to that of the 25j in my picture, and the damascening pattern is the same. I wonder at what point they went to the new damascening pattern or if some watches continued to have different patterns?

JohnCote

[Steve Maddox]

I noticed that myself, and was wondering the same thing.

Doesn't anyone else here have any additional ones of these?

SM

[rrwatch]

Kent and I have been collecting data on the 21 jewel and up Columbus watches for a while now. We are trying to record enough serial number data to determine what the production runs and quantities are for all the different grades, jewel counts, etc.. This thread has given us quite a number of additional movements to add to what we had already collected. Please keep posting the data or send it to either Kent or myself. For companies such as Columbus, data from actual watches is the best (and sometimes the only) way of putting together an accurate picture of what was really produced.
A couple of obsevations that I've noticed so far:

Movements with the jeweled barrels use settings with three screws, plain metal settings are held with two screws. Concerning Greg's watch, which has two screws holding the setting, is it possible that a watchmaker substituted a jewel to replace a badly scored metal bearing?

Two distinct damaskeening patterns seem to have been used, there doesn't seem to be any serial number correlation between them. I've wondered if the factory had two different damaskeen engines (or possibly two different skilled operators,) each using their own pattern?

Some of the movements contain the words "Columbus, Ohio" engraved on the barrel bridge, others omit it. Again, I haven't seen any correlation to either the serial number, or the damaskeen pattern. Two different engravers perhaps?

A couple of movements seem to be misidentified in the published literature. From the location of the case screws, I believe S/N 503,073 is a hunting case movement and S/N 504,971 is an open face movement.

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Ed Ueberall
NAWCC #49688

[Greg Frauenhoff]

Identifying OF vs. Htg Columbus.

Without seeing the actual location of the setting mechanism I use the following to determine whether a Col. mvt is OF or Htg. Look between the balance bridge and the barrel bridge. If there is a plate screw there in addition to the case screw then it's an OF. If there's only a case screw then it's a Htg.

Greg

[Kent]

Steve and Others:

To add to what Ed said, we apprciate the effort you all are going through to furnish the information and scans. Making a special trip to the safe deposit box, as in Steve's case, is certainly above and beyond the needs of the conversation on this thread.

Please accept our thanks for the assistance. We're not sure when it will be published, but a column on this has been over a year in the making and we've still got a long way to go.

Kent

[John Cote]

Hi All,

Steve Cunningham sent me these scans of some analog photos he took of his 25j Columbus RR King. It seems to have the same damascening pattern as the 25j King.
http://www.interstatetime.com/Posts/images/RRKing25Comp.jpg

Thanks Steve

JohnCote

[Larry Jones 98326]

I was able to inspect the watch that I listed the images of above, again today. It is:

505620-CK-21-Htg

BUT, it does have 22 jewels. I pulled the dial and carefully inspected both plates. The layout is standard for an 18s 21 jewel with cap jewels on
both ends of the pallet and escape arbors. The center wheel is jeweled on both arbors. The extra jewel is a cap jewel on the end of the barrel arbor
and looks completely original to me.

Larry