Can anyone identify this

[outraged]

The watch i found this weekend is stamped inside....I can post more pics if needed.


Patent Lever
FULL
jeweled
Stem Winder
no# 318982


http://i11.tinypic.com/434mx5s.jpg

[LloydB]

The watch i found this weekend is stamped inside....I can post more pics if needed.


Patent Lever
FULL
jeweled
Stem Winder
no# 318982


http://i11.tinypic.com/434mx5s.jpg

A detailed pic of the movement (at least) is needed;
a dial pic might also help. The language is very
like British-made or Swiss imported GB or to the US.

Also, what's the diameter of the movement?

[Jerry Matthews]

I have never seen the words "stem winder" nor that style of case decoration on an English-made watch.

[Tom McIntyre]

That sort of mark is usually associated with cheap Swiss watches that have English names and were made for export to the "backward" colonials like us. Some English may have been involved in the fraud but there is no really solid evidence of it.

[beta21]

Nevertheless, these "stm winders" sometimes have very unusual and experimental types of SW mechanisms. How about a pic of the movement?

Peter

[Jerry Matthews]

That sort of mark is usually associated with cheap Swiss watches that have English names and were made for export to the "backward" colonials like us. Some English may have been involved in the fraud but there is no really solid evidence of it.



I have never come across any references to English watchmakers producing cheap fakes for export. I don't believe it could have happened. English watchmaking late 19th century was very cost inefficient. No way could they compete in price terms with Switzerland, which was then a low-wage country (hard as that is to imagine today) and one pound sterling would buy 25 Swiss francs (vs 2.4 today). Similarly, Americans were able to underprice English makers in their own domestic market. The suggestion that the English were exporting in any quantity--fakes or otherwise--does rather stretch credibility.

[Tom McIntyre]

Jerry,

By involved, I did not mean to imply that they were involved in the manufacturing. However, their business network was available to process products that were produced in Switzerland. The only portion of the transaction that the English would have been engaged in was the factoring or assembling of orders and perhaps the scheduling of production.

Clearly some English makers were involved with the import of partial Swiss work into the UK. Even the highest grades of chronographs and repeaters are often found with Swiss work.

Nicole Neilsen, who provided the movements to Dent, Frodsham and other high end makers maintained their Swiss family connections until very late in the 19th century and maybe later. My favorites, Barraud and Lunds, listed Swiss items in their 1900's vintage catalog.

It is clear that one could not have co-opted the English craft system to the Swiss bar work. It was very difficult to even get them to buy into English factory production.

[Jerry Matthews]

Tom,

Thanks for the clarification. You are absolutely right that English "makers" did start using imported movements when Swiss and American competition began to bite hard around the 1880s. Almost all the larger English outfits----Graves, Benson, Bennett, Russell,Dent, etc---began putting imported work into English hallmarked cases. After about 1900 it became increasingly hard to find a real English-made watch.

Jerry