LOOKING FOR INFO ON POCKET WATCH

[doug sinclair]

Bill,

You've giwen the information off the case it would appear. What information is on the face (dial) of the watch. Can you supply a picture?

Doug S..

[Kent]

Bill:

Only a small percentage of American watches (or Swiss watches for the North American market) were cased at the factories prior to the mid-1920's. Most watch companies just made movements (the "works") 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 (in Canada), 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.

You can see an 1892 ad for the Essex 'SX' case at:
http://elginwatches.org/scans/misc_ads/1892/s_essex.html
(you should copy this link and paste it in your browser address bar since directly linking to this website from the NAWCC Message Board is not possible)

As Doug said, it would be helpful if you could post a picture of the movement, 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 "How To Open A Pocket Watch Case" (http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/opencase.txt) useful.

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

Or, when you click on the Reply button, at the lower right-hand corner of the bottom post in a thread, the Reply To: box that opens has a toolbar at its top. The right-hand icon on the toolbar is a paperclip. Clicking upon the paperclip icon will open a box that allows you to select a picture file to attach to your post. Use the Browse button to navigate to the location in which the picture file resides on your disk drive and select it. Since this only permits one picture per reply, you can reply once for each picture.

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,
Kent

That guy down in Georgia :smile:

[Kent]

Bill:

You can lean some basic information about your watch movement (the "works") by entering its serial number at the NAWCC Information Storage - Waltham Serial Number Data Base (http://www.nawcc-info.org/WalthamDB/LookupSN.asp).

I know that the people who created that site are working on a glossary of terms. When they're ready, perhaps they'll put up a link to the glossary from the NAWCC Information Storage - Waltham Serial Number Data Base page.

Kent

That guy down in Georgia :smile:

[John F]

In the interim, a draft of the glossary of terms and abbreviations found in the database can be found in this discussion thread (http://mcintyre.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2071) on the AWCo board.

John