Determining age and maker

[TigerScott]

I recently acquired 2 pocket watches that were my Great Grandfathers and I have not been able to identify the maker or age of one of them. I am a novice collector and wondering what the best technique is for determining that information since it is not clearly marked on the pocket watch.

Thanks

Here is some info from the watch and I will attempt to post pictures...

Size 9 (??)
Inside back cover: A Crown with "Warranted" and serial # 529713 plus a couple jewelers marks.

Inside front cover: same serial number

Movement cover: marked with a slightly different crown, "14K", "Guaranteed 25 Years", "529713", and jewelers marks

Movement: "15 Jewels", "206575" and "Swiss"

Face: White porcelain dial with black Roman numerals, red numbers outside of roman numerals indicating minutes and a subdial above the 6 o'clock position for seconds. Blue iridescent hands

[TigerScott]

I recently acquired 2 pocket watches that were my Great Grandfathers and I have not been able to identify the maker or age of one of them. I am a novice collector and wondering what the best technique is for determining that information since it is not clearly marked on the pocket watch.

Thanks

Here is some info from the watch and I will attempt to post pictures...

Size 9 (??)
Inside back cover: A Crown with "Warranted" and serial # 529713 plus a couple jewelers marks.

Inside front cover: same serial number

Movement cover: marked with a slightly different crown, "14K", "Guaranteed 25 Years", "529713", and jewelers marks

Movement: "15 Jewels", "206575" and "Swiss"

Face: White porcelain dial with black Roman numerals, red numbers outside of roman numerals indicating minutes and a subdial above the 6 o'clock position for seconds. Blue iridescent hands

[Kent]

TigerScott:

If you're truly a novice collector, you may be interested in Barry Goldberg's book for new collectors. It contains a lot of basic information and tells you where to look next.

http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/barry_book_sm.jpg (http://barrygoldberg.net/watchguide.htm)
Click for info.

Only a small percentage of American watches were cased at the factories prior to the mid-1920's. Most watch companies just made movements in industry standard sizes. The case companies made cases in those same sizes. The practice at that time was to go to a jeweler, select the quality of the movement and then pick out the desired style and quality of case. The jeweler would then fit the movement to the case in a matter of moments.

Or, watches were sold by mail-order. Large outfits such as Sears, Roebuck & Co., Montgomery Ward, or T. Eaton, would offer the movements in a variety of cases of different design and quality in their catalogs. Smaller mail-order retailers would case the watches, typically in a 20-year gold filled case and offer it only that way, with the buyer not having a choice of cases.

Your Swiss movement sounds pretty generic. The same basic "ebauches" (raw, mass-produced movements) were used by a number of Swiss firms who would finish them to various levels of quality. You didn't say anything about the second watch, so there's not much to go on there.

The case you described sounds like a gold-filled case, possibly made by the Philadelphia Watch Case Company. We might be able to tell more if you can post a picture of the trade mark. A large proportion of movements are housed in gold-filled cases. These cases are made of a sheet of inexpensive, "composition" metal (brass), sandwiched between two thinner sheets of gold by applying heat and pressure. During the 1930's, one process of doing this gave rise to the term, "rolled gold-plate." The gold sheet that becomes the inside of the case is much thinner than the gold sheet that becomes the outside of the case. Frequently, the purity of the gold used in the sheets, expressed in karats, is stamped inside the back of the case. Some case companies indicated the thickness of the outer layer of gold by using different trademarks for different thicknesses. Before federal regulations outlawed the practice, some case companies indicated the thickness of the outer layer by the number of years for which the case was warranted. Not all case companies were forthright about marking the cases or honoring the warranty (which is what gave rise to the federal regulations). Frequently, the color of the gold (imparted by the metal with which the gold is alloyed) is expressed in conjunction with the term, "gold-filled." Thus it is not uncommon to see terms such as "yellow gold-filled," "white gold-filled," "green gold-filled," and so forth, used in case descriptions.

It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the movement, the clearer and sharper, the better. 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. We may be able to identify it by the shape of the plates. 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. If you have a problem posting the picture, you can attach it to an e-mail to me (by clicking on the speeding letter at the top of my post) and I'll post it for you.

Its also helpful if you can post all the markings that are on the movements (the "works"), if there is more than what you already noted, in case they can't be seen in the picture(s).

Good luck,
Kent :smile:

[This message has been edited by Kent (edited 12-29-2001).]

[TigerScott]

Kent- Thanks for the response! I have posted pictures at http://mywatches.tripod.com/mywatches and they are listed under "Great Granddad pocket watch"... thanks again and looking forward to any additional information.

Scott

p.s. I ordered the book!

[Kent]

Scott:

I'm sorry to say that I don't recognize this at all. Perhaps one of the other people can suggest something.

Can you post a closeup of the crown on the case back?

Kent

[This message has been edited by Kent (edited 12-29-2001).]

[Jeff Hess]

I just love these guessing games!

My guess is that it a Swiss watch (although I have seen similar watches by LaSalle tht were American) and that it might be your Grandmothers rther than your Grandfathers.

What is the diameter of the movement?

[TigerScott]

Thanks for the replies... further investigation on my end has revealed that I believe the case is in fact a Philadelphia Watch Case Company product and the movement was added to complete the watch.

It measures 36.4 mm or 16 1/8 Lignes and therefore must be a size 8???

Here are a couple of questions...

What makes you think it was my Great Grandmother not Great Grandfather?

How do I now determine the age?

Any recommendations on getting it overhauled? It runs and keeps good time but desperately needs some help!

Thanks
Scott

[This message has been edited by TigerScott (edited 12-30-2001).]

[Kent]

Scott:

I think that Jeff took a shortcut in commenting upon the size of the watch. Estimating the date very roughly as the 19-noughts's or `teens, this is a smaller watch than was typically carried by a man. It was most likely sold as a ladies watch, hence it ought to have belonged to your Great Grandmother.

Regarding the dating, its hard to say exactly why those years (very roughly 1905-1915), but it has that look about it. Being Swiss (Jeff: he said it was marked "Swiss" in his first post), and thus leading the international industry it may go back to the 1890's, but the general style of the 3/4 plate design gives it that later appearance. The damaskeening, especilally on the ratchet wheel, is something that was not being done as much by the 1920's, especially on a modest movement. That the movement is modest is evidenced by the lack of an "Adjusted" marking and the non-precision regulator. The height of the pendant and winding crown is also indicatilve. As the `teens progressed, the pendants were getting shorter. By the mid-20's they became a wider assembly on the rim, but with a low crown.

For servicing the watch, you might consider The Escapement:

http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/escapement_logo_sm.jpg (http://members.aol.com/stdwatch)
Click for info.

Kent :smile:

[This message has been edited by Kent (edited 12-31-2001).]

[Jeff Hess]

I took a shortcut??

What does that mean?

That my guess was right?

Oh well.

Jeff :smile:

[Tom McIntyre]

This is a more interesting watch than it first appears. Although it is not marked adjusted, it has had a lot of work done to the balance to bring it to some sort of adjustment. I copied the picture and enlarged the balance area to show it.

http://awco-serv/OddWatches/OddBalance.jpg

There is a rather large affix on the outside of the balance. From the views available it does not appear to be symmetric, so it may have been used for poising. Has anyone ever seen one of these before? I have not.

------------------
Tom McIntyre
Past President, NAWCC Chapter 174
Pocket Horology Web (http://www.pocketwatch.org)
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.mcintyre.com/McIntyre)

[TigerScott]

This is great... I am just really getting into watch collecting and this Message Board has truly added to my excitement.

From my reading and believe me, you guys have had me in the glossary on some of these terms, I have been able to figure out most of what you are discussing.

However, poising- the glossary definition did nothing to help me understand it.. any layman term definitions?

As for it being my Great Grandmothers watch.. my wife pointed out that it is more of a rose gold than yellow and thus makes perfect sense...

Thanks for all of your input... this is quickly becoming an obsession vice hobby!

Scott

[This message has been edited by TigerScott (edited 12-31-2001).]

[mikeh]

Scott,

Poising refers to adding or subtracting weight from the balance wheel (generally via manipulation of the balance screws) in order to eliminate any 'heavy' spot from the wheel. It's kind of like using those lead weights to balance your car tire so you get a smooth ride.

Regards,
Mike

p.s. Welcome to our obsession!

[This message has been edited by mikeh (edited 12-31-2001).]

[Steve Maddox]

I must confess that when this thread initially appeared, I clicked to see Scott's pictures, but after declining about a dozen "cookies," the page was downloading so slowly that I finally gave up (I could have received these images quicker by carrier pigeon!). Upon seeing Tom's comments above, however, I decided to hang on for the long haul, and try to see what he was talking about.

After some fairly considerable length of time, the multiple linked bitmap images finally began to appear, and I was able to get "properties" to display for the movement image, then post it's address directly to my browser. This, at last, allowed me to download the HUGE image file, which does have fairly good resolution.

Unfortunately, I do not see what Tom's talking about with the "rather large affix on the outside of the balance." The balance does have some shadows covering parts of it, but that's just a product of the lighting. I wasn't able to see Tom's picture above, so I cropped off one of my own (I hope Scott won't mind), lightened it a bit to reveal the details as much as possible, then posted it at the following link: http://members.aol.com/lrhorology/BigBalance.JPG

Judging from the extremely regular spacing of the balance screws, I'd say that this is indeed an "unadjusted" watch, which is what one would expect for a watch of this size and grade, but it may be a real "cut compensation" balance.

Maybe Tom's seeing something that I'm not, but the only thing "unusual" I see about it is that someone owns it who actually appreciates it. If only everyone was as enthusiastic about their heirloom watches as Scott seems to be!

------------------
Steve Maddox
President, NAWCC Chapter #62
North Little Rock, Arkansas

[TigerScott]

Sorry the pictures took so long to load... I did take them in the highest resolution I could to show the detail.

Any idea of the maker or should I just be content with narrowing down the timeframe to early 1900s with it appearing to be a Philidelphia Watch Case Co. case and generic swiss movement?

Thanks and Happy New Year to all!
Scott

[Tom McIntyre]

Maybe it is just a shadow, but counting clockwise from the gap in the balance, it looks like there is no outer metal after the 4th screw. Since the metal in the shadow counter-clockwise from the gap was visible, I jumped to the conclusion that it was real. :redface:

Steve, why would the regular spacing of the screws have anything to do with adjusted vs. not adjusted? I thought adjustments were achieved by changing the weight of the screws. Certainly the balance is drilled long before any adjusting activity takes place.

------------------
Tom McIntyre
Past President, NAWCC Chapter 174
Pocket Horology Web (http://www.pocketwatch.org)
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.mcintyre.com/McIntyre)

[Steve Maddox]

Tom,

Truly "adjusted" watches with split compensation balances typically have about twice as many holes in their balance rims as they have screws (usually 14 or 16 screws, and about 30 holes). The reason for this is to allow adjustment for the temperature compensation. By concentrating more screws toward the loose ends of the balance rims, more compensation is obtained. Of course, by concentrating the screws more toward the ends of the rims that are attached to the spoke arms, less compensation is obtained because that portion of the rim doesn't move in and out as much.

In short, any watch that is actually adjusted for temperature, is very unlikely to have extremely regular spacing of the balance screws. They're almost always arranged in "odd" patterns, as needed to achieve the correct amount of compensation for their particular hairspring (and every hairspring is slightly different).

SM