Achievement Pocket Watch

[bozrth]

Was wondering if anyone could give me some information on a pocket watch that I am assuming was made by Achievement, it says Achievement on it, and I will have pictures of it hopefully soon. Any information at all on watches made by Achievement, or the company that made them, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

[bozrth]

Was wondering if anyone could give me some information on a pocket watch that I am assuming was made by Achievement, it says Achievement on it, and I will have pictures of it hopefully soon. Any information at all on watches made by Achievement, or the company that made them, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

[Kent]

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. Some watch manufacturers were more liberal. The Illinois Watch Co. probably produced the largest number of private label watches, a number of which, mostly those with names associated with railroads, are considered to be highly collectable.

It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the movement (the "works"), 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 "<span class="ev_code_red">How To Open A Pocket Watch Case</span>" (http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/opencase.txt) useful.

For an open-face, screw back & bezel cased 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, it’ll have to be a digital camera, or a scan of a photograph.

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

Currently, Tom Chaudoir the NAWCC Message Board Administrator is recommending that those who do not currently have web space in which to place pictures register for a free account at flickr.com (http://flickr.com/register.gne). Their procedure for loading pictures is about as easy as it gets.

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,