Peoria Fredonia

[Jeff Hess]

At one time I did a lot of research on Peroia and Fredonia watches. (I even used to live in an apartment in the house owned by the President of the Peoria Watch company, nut that I am about watches) I have not done any reserach in years and have shared mine with some of the guys who hae "taken the baton". I kno wthings hae progressed a lot lately and wonder if anyone can shed any light on the "old speculation". Only number one Peoria has been found the rest have been 2000-ish and up. "Speculation" has been that only Fredonia had the lower numbers in the single and double digits. Even more speculation has been that the Fredonia number and Peoria numbers ran without identical numbers. I have never been able to prove this. The number one that I found, also was a cermonial number one with another number on the inside plates. Has anyone PROVEN by seeing identical serial numbers on a Fredonia and a Peoria that they did not run in sequence? Has anyone ever SEEN a 7 jewel Peoria? Or a 17 jewel?
Jeff Hess

[Jeff Hess]

At one time I did a lot of research on Peroia and Fredonia watches. (I even used to live in an apartment in the house owned by the President of the Peoria Watch company, nut that I am about watches) I have not done any reserach in years and have shared mine with some of the guys who hae "taken the baton". I kno wthings hae progressed a lot lately and wonder if anyone can shed any light on the "old speculation". Only number one Peoria has been found the rest have been 2000-ish and up. "Speculation" has been that only Fredonia had the lower numbers in the single and double digits. Even more speculation has been that the Fredonia number and Peoria numbers ran without identical numbers. I have never been able to prove this. The number one that I found, also was a cermonial number one with another number on the inside plates. Has anyone PROVEN by seeing identical serial numbers on a Fredonia and a Peoria that they did not run in sequence? Has anyone ever SEEN a 7 jewel Peoria? Or a 17 jewel?
Jeff Hess

[Greg Frauenhoff]

Jeff,

In my database of 1000 Peoria/Fredonia numbers there are no instances of Peoria and Fredonia mvts with the same serial numbers. Also, I have no documented examples of 7 or 17 jewel Peoria mvts.

Greg

[Jeff Hess]

Greg,

So the same "suggestion" lives?

It used to really bother me that folks insisted that Peoria made 7 and 17 and eleven jewels. Untill I found a 9 and an eleven jewel Model!

how about sizes other than 18? I have seen none.

And the highest peoria was 22,xxx and the lowest "true" non magnetic was 16,xxx. Does this still hold true?

Jeff

[Greg Frauenhoff]

Jeff,

The highest # for a Peoria that I have recorded is 23400. #34372 is a private label. Lowest NMWCA is 12463 (this one is 11 jewels). Of course, I haven't personally seen all of these mvts and reporting errors are always a possibility.

Greg