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Kent
01-17-2004, 12:36 AM
formydad:

Swiss watch manufacture was made up of a large number of small shops. Many would buy movements in the rough from factories who mass-produced them, and finish the movements to the grade (quality) contracted for by the distributor/exporter. The distributor/exporter would probably have specified the name on the movement and/or dial to meet a retailer's requirement. The result is that there are a large number of generic Swiss watches whose origins may never be fully known.

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. For an open-face, screw back & bezel watch you can get good results by placing the movement on a flatbed scanner. 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.

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.

Good luck,
Kent

That guy down in Georgia :smile:

Kent
01-18-2004, 01:30 AM
formydad:

I couldn't find your pictures at that website. Can you put up a better link to the pictures? Or, host them on the NAWCC Pocket Watch Message Board as described above?

the watch may be commemorative (which you spelled correctly).

The references to World Fair in Brussels 1910 may be bragging by the maker that the watch won awards at a competition at that fair. These tyapes of markings are very common on Swiss watches.

Silver cases are also common. 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.

That guy down in Georgia :smile:

Kent
01-20-2004, 12:34 AM
formydad:

I did look at your pictures. What I originally said was "I couldn't find your pictures at that website." So, blame me for not being able to navigate around an unfamiliar website, not for ignoring your pictures. By the time I saw them, you had already identified the movement as being made by Tavannes.

You requested "If you folks have no idea, then please say so."
Usually, if most of us don't know the answer to a question, we don't bother posting to say so. For the number of us that there are, that would cog every topic with useless responses.

I took the time to post what I did know about your watch. If I used stock text, that's because I thought that it was applicable and I have no idea of your level of knowledge of watches in general. Perhaps you already know that the retailer contracted with Tavannes to have the name "MONTIN" put on the watch. Beyond that, I have no idea where the name "MONTIN" came from.

Kent

That guy down in Georgia :smile:

Tom McIntyre
01-20-2004, 12:53 AM
When you are using an album, you get different views depending on how you link to the album. The album creator can see images that others cannot see.

Your second set of links are fine but sifting through 21 images to find something to help you is a bit daunting. As you may have noticed there is no advertising on this site. We are all here because we enjoy watches and clocks.

You movement is clearly marked Tavannes. That is the name of the watch maker.

Normally with all the cuvette markings, the name on the cuvette would appear on the movement. It is possible the case and the movement did not begin life together.

Pritchard's exhaustive work on Swiss watch makers does not list a maker or brand name of Montin.

Your watch has two extra gears in the gear train. Does it by any chance run for a full week on a single winding?

As far as I know there are no records from the Brussels exposition of 1910 so it may be difficult to get any details on this item. There were a great many expositions and all manufacturers used their awards to decorate watches.

As to the lack of response, people normally only reply when they know or can guess something of the answer.

Tom McIntyre
NAWCC 2nd VP
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.AWCo.org)

Tom McIntyre
01-20-2004, 12:56 AM
It looks like Kent and I were posting simultaneously. It took me nearly half and hour to get through all the pictures. :wink:

Tom McIntyre
NAWCC 2nd VP
Tommy the JOAT's Web (http://www.AWCo.org)

beta21
01-20-2004, 07:19 AM
Hi,
Here's a link (http://nawcc-***-mb.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=3206049661&f=1086047761&m=6576021533&r=3006022533#3006022533) to a website which discussed a similar watch with this odd train lay out. Hope this helps a little. Other trade names for this former major Swiss manufacturer were "Cyma" and "Tacy".

Peter Stammler
NAWCC #0159328