Date engraved on inside of AWC AT movement...

[Jerry Bryant]

I have made a new discovery (for me, anyway) on my Appleton Tracy SN 449978 movement. There is a date engraved on the inside plate, under the dial side, and it is Feb. 14, 1865. It does not have the word, "Patented" beside it, as I would have expected to see. Does anyone know the significance of this date? Here is a photo:

Jerry

[Jon Hanson]

I have made a new discovery (for me, anyway) on my Appleton Tracy SN 449978 movement. There is a date engraved on the inside plate, under the dial side, and it is Feb. 14, 1865. It does not have the word, "Patented" beside it, as I would have expected to see. Does anyone know the significance of this date? Here is a photo:

Jerry

Charles W. Fogg’s patent safety pinion patent No. 46343, Feb. 14, 1865.

[haneyk]

Can you explain exactly what this patent consists of, in simple terms? I've always wondered about it.

[terry hall]

see if this link works for you

FOGG'S PATENT (http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=US000046343&SectionNum=4&IDKey=5D1A2975E7EA&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2%2526Sect2=HITOFF%2526p=1%2526u=% 25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-bool.html%2526r=1%2526f=G%2526l=50%2526co1=AND%252 6d=PALL%2526s1=0046,343.PN.%2526OS=PN/0046,343%2526RS=PN/0046,343)

[Jon Hanson]

it protects the watch if the mainspring breaks.

[haneyk]

Terry, that link didn't work for me...

[Tom McIntyre]

Fogg's patent is pretty simple. the center arbor has a thread to hold the center pinion that butts against a stop. When the barrel backlashes with a breaking mainspring, the thread unscrews and the pinion is not there to drive the train and damage the wheels.

This watch has a unique instance of Fogg's patent because the center wheel is next to the dial instead of the top plate, so the pinion is above the wheel instead of below it. The variant was designed and fabricated by Bill Tapp.

http://www.awco.org/AWCo/American/CVWoerdPatent/Movement3.jpg

[terry hall]

sorry... not sure how to make it work thru the site...

but

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html

is the us patent office search engine..

place the patent number in term one, then chose patent number in the drop down on the right...

then chose 1790 to present in the select years drop down..

next page will tell you to 'select images'

you will need to let activeX controls run to view the image of the original patent...
select front page for the text.

good luck.