Another Newbie

[Tommy Gun]

You guys must get tired of all us newbies popping in on you but at the risk of raising your ire here's my situation.
I own an Illinois Bunn Special, 21 jewels, sn 3799655. It has a Philadelphia Watch Case Co. 20 yr.case, sn 9221912.
The watch was purchased by my grandfather who was a streetcar operator back in the 1920's. When he died in the early 1950's it was passed on to my father who used it daily for 30 years. Much of the gold plating is worn away and the gold loop on the stem is missing. When my dad passed away in the 80,s I put it in my dresser drawer and forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
I guess I getting a bit sentimental as I grow older because when I ran across the watch I pulled it out and wound it up. To my surprise it appears to work, only losing a minute or so a week. I've come to the conclusion that this old watch deserves a little bit more respect that I've shown it the last 20 years.
Ok, my questions. What can be done about the worn case? Can the loop be replaced? Should it keep better time than it does? I assume it should be cleaned and oiled. Are these kind of repairs expensive? Where does one take a 80+ year old watch for repairs?
If any of you guys can give me some guidance it would be greatly appreciated.

I going to try to post some pics, please forgive me if I screw it up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/Lancer1717/ww1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/Lancer1717/ww.jpg

[Tommy Gun]

You guys must get tired of all us newbies popping in on you but at the risk of raising your ire here's my situation.
I own an Illinois Bunn Special, 21 jewels, sn 3799655. It has a Philadelphia Watch Case Co. 20 yr.case, sn 9221912.
The watch was purchased by my grandfather who was a streetcar operator back in the 1920's. When he died in the early 1950's it was passed on to my father who used it daily for 30 years. Much of the gold plating is worn away and the gold loop on the stem is missing. When my dad passed away in the 80,s I put it in my dresser drawer and forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
I guess I getting a bit sentimental as I grow older because when I ran across the watch I pulled it out and wound it up. To my surprise it appears to work, only losing a minute or so a week. I've come to the conclusion that this old watch deserves a little bit more respect that I've shown it the last 20 years.
Ok, my questions. What can be done about the worn case? Can the loop be replaced? Should it keep better time than it does? I assume it should be cleaned and oiled. Are these kind of repairs expensive? Where does one take a 80+ year old watch for repairs?
If any of you guys can give me some guidance it would be greatly appreciated.

I going to try to post some pics, please forgive me if I screw it up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/Lancer1717/ww1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/Lancer1717/ww.jpg

[Kent]

Hi Tommy Gun:

Welcome to the NAWCC Pocket Watch Message Board!

Yes the bow (what you referred to as the "loop") can easily be replaced. Very little can be done with the fact that the gold of the case is worn through to the brass. The case can be replated, but very often, the color won't look right. Worse than that, the thin gold plating will be worn away at the high spots on the case within a short time, if carried frequently.

Your watch is a well-respected, high grade railroad watch and, after proper service, it should be able keep time well within the railroad specification of +/- 30 seconds per week.

Watches that are carried daily need to be cleaned and oiled at regular intervals. Railroad time service rules varied, but requirements for cleaning on a basis of once every year and a half were typical for railroaders at the turn of the century. By the mid-1920’s this was extended to two year intervals.

The “Sears, Roebuck and Co., Inc. Catalogue No. 104,” Chicago, IL, 1897, reprinted by Chelsea House, Philadelphia, PA, 1968 had this to say on page 371:

“We Guarantee for Five Years All the movements sold by us. This does not refer to the life of the movement, but that we will for five years from date of purchase, correct free of charge any fault which may occur from defective material or workmanship. Any well made movement will run a lifetime if properly cared for.
“Remember That your watch should not run longer than one and one-half years without having the old oil cleaned off and fresh oil supplied. This must be done at the expense of the purchaser.
“The balance wheel of all modern watches makes 18,000 beats or revolutions per hour; 432,000 per day, or 157,788,000 per year. An engine or sewing machine will be oiled several times per day, but we have known people to carry a watch for ten years without having it cleaned or fresh oil applied.
“Usually, a movement thus treated is of no value, being entirely worn out. Take good care of your watch if you wish it to perform its duty properly, for it is a very delicate machine. Our charge for cleaning and oiling is 75 cents. The regular retail price is $1.50.”

Watch cleaning and oiling costs a bit more today than it did a hundred years ago. Check out What You Need To Know About Watch Repair at Wayne Schlitt's Elgin Website:
www.midwestcs.com/elgin/help/watch_repair.html
To view, go to the Elgin Watch Collectors Site Home Page at elginwatches.com, then copy and paste the address in your browser's address bar and click on 'Go'.

Also, Ed Ueberall, of The Escapement (http://members.aol.com/stdwatch) has put together some notes on the Use And Care of Your Vintage Watch (http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/carefeed.txt) that should be helpful.

The Illinois Watch Company was founded in 1870 as the Springfield Watch Co. of Springfield, IL. It turned out about five million watches before being sold to the Hamilton Watch Co. of Lancaster, PA, in 1928. An interesting Historical Account of the Illinois Watch Co. (http://www.knology.net/~ksinger/Illinois%20History.txt) is available, re-typed from the pages posted on Greg Frauenhoff's Website, as is an article on Jacob Bunn (http://members.aol.com/gfrauen10/celebrated.html), a president of the Illinois Watch Co., and son of one of the firm's founders. Brief descriptions and list prices of Illinois movements may be seen online in a 530 Kb scan of an 1887 Catalog Supplement (http://static.flickr.com/27/43570061_f24bcaeb4e_b.jpg).

Hamilton continued production in Springfield for several years and then moved operations to the Hamilton plant in Lancaster. Illinois watches continued to be produced as different designs from Hamilton watches until 1949 when the name was retired.

Information about Illinois watches may be found in "American Pocket Watches Vol. 2, Illinois Watch Co., Encyclopedia and Price Guide," William Meggers, Jr. & Roy Ehrhardt, Heart of America Press (http://www.hoapress.com), Kansas City, MO, 1985 (still in print), and in Russell W Snyder's Illinois Data Base CD (http://nawcc-mb.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/4316035461/m/2401056421/r/8541060521#8541060521). Then, there are Oldwatch.com's Illinois Production Date Chart (http://www.oldwatch.com/Illinoisdate.html) and the PocketWatchSite's Illinois Date Table (http://www.pocketwatchsite.com/illinoisserials.html) which are an online means for determining the approximate production date of Illinois pocket watches. In general, we think of serial number lists (not just for Illinois, but for other watch manufacturers as well) to only be accurate within a year or two at best, and recognize that there are numerous exceptions wherein which the dates may be off as much as 3 years or more.

Illinois was very well-known for its railroad grade watches, especially the Bunn Special (an example of which can be seen in the 1923 Baird-North Catalog (http://photos22.flickr.com/26416970_a8ee21af9d_o.jpg)) and the Sangamo Special grades. The Bunn Special's name can be traced back to John and Jacob Bunn, two of the founding directors of the company. A 1918 Illinois ad for their Bunn Special and Sangamo Special grade watches, demonstrating the sixth position, can be seen at:
elginwatches.org/scans/non_elgin_ads/1918/m_02_illinois_bunn_special_a6p.html
To view, go to the Elgin Watch Collectors Site Home Page at elginwatches.com, then copy and paste the address in your browser's address bar and click on 'Go'.
All Six Positions (http://static.flickr.com/5/9939069_a6655c13df_o.jpg) are illustrated in a 1924 ad from a brotherhood journal.

Looking the serial number on your movement up in the above mentioned references indicates that it was built around 1921.

Many people have come to call any large old pocket watch, especially one with an engraving of a locomotive on the back of the case, a railroad watch. This usage is frequently is incorrect. The term "Railroad Watch" was used by the watch and jewelry trade (and is now used by collectors) to refer those high grade watches that met the requirements of railroad time service rules and standards. The railroad industry, and the railroaders themselves, referred to the watches as "Standard Watches," literally, those watches that met the railroads' time service standards.

Although the person who originally owned a watch may have worked for a railroad, it is not necessarily what could properly be called a "Railroad Watch." The use of a standard watch was only required of a portion of railroad employes (correct spelling, used in many older railroad documents), usually those directly involved in running the trains, or controlling, or affecting, the operation of trains. Other employes carried whatever watches they liked. Typical lists of those required to carry a standard watch appear in an 1892 report of Time Inspection on the Illinois Central Railroad (http://photos13.flickr.com/18116144_9bc4fcef3f_b.jpg) and as Standard Time Rule No. 2 in a 1901 Edition of Canadian Pacific Railway General, Train, and Interlocking Rules (http://photos9.flickr.com/13887167_289ea8006f_o.jpg). The Union Pacific RR website has concise explanations of Past and Present Railroad Job Descriptions (http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/jobs.shtml)

To learn more about railroad time service, time inspection and railroad standard watches, see ”Just What Is A Railroad Watch?” On the Pocket Horology, NAWCC Chapter 174 Website (http://www.pockethorology.org/).

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 (even then, uncased movements were furnished to the trade at least until the 1960'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.

The book, “History of the American Watch Case,” Warren H. Niebling, Whitmore Publishing, Philadelphia, PA, 1971 (available on loan by mail to members from the NAWCC Library & Research Center (http://www.nawcc.org/Library/library.htm)), has a fairly good history of the Philadelphia Watch Case Co., including reproductions of over twenty photos taken inside of the factory. Briefly, quoting from page 48,

"MR. THEOPHILUS ZURBRUGG bought out the watch case company of Leichty & Le Bouba in 1884, in Philadelphia, Pa.

"About 1888 he changed the name to the Philadelphia Watch Case Co. He made various types of cases, using a crown as one trademark and an arm and hammer as another. ... The company moved to Riverside, N.J. in 1902. ...

"In 1904 this man managed a series of mergers, which brought together his own Philadelphia Watch Case Co., Bates and Bacon, Crescent and the Keystone Watch Case Co."

From page 7:
"... After a series of mergers in 1904 the name became the Keystone Watch Case Co., Riverside, N.J."

Regardless of the company’s name, the cases continued to be stamped with previous, well-known trade names.

You have a very nice family heirloom,

[Tommy Gun]

Kent
Thanks for the time and effort you put in your reply to my post. I never knew the world of pocket watches was so extensive and so fascinating. I can see myself getting caught up in this hobby. I think I'll put the Thompson (my #1 passion) away for a few months and spend the winter learning about railroad watches.

Thanks again.