Kent
10-15-2001, 03:56 PM
Brian:
Your watch sounds like a 'private label,' or 'contract,' watch. Just about all the watch companies, including the Swiss firms, would mark both the watch movements and/or the dials in just about any manner for any customer who wished to pay for the service. I don't have any exact references for the costs, but I've heard (read?) that, for some companies, if five or more watches were ordered, there was no charge for marking the movements. Special dials were said to cost 25 or 50 cents each. These watches were contracted for by a large range of companies, from Sears, Roebuck down to the smaller jewelers in the little towns.
It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the movement, the clearer and sharper, the better. For an open-face, screw back & bezel watch you can get good results by placing the movement on a flatbed scanner. We may be able to identify it by the shape of the plates. 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. Larry Jones has written up a useful article on Image Posting (http://www.larjones.com/data/imagehelp.html), which may be helpful. If you have a problem posting the picture, you can attach it to an e-mail to me (by clicking on the speeding letter at the top of my post) and I'll post it 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).
Kent
Your watch sounds like a 'private label,' or 'contract,' watch. Just about all the watch companies, including the Swiss firms, would mark both the watch movements and/or the dials in just about any manner for any customer who wished to pay for the service. I don't have any exact references for the costs, but I've heard (read?) that, for some companies, if five or more watches were ordered, there was no charge for marking the movements. Special dials were said to cost 25 or 50 cents each. These watches were contracted for by a large range of companies, from Sears, Roebuck down to the smaller jewelers in the little towns.
It would be helpful if you could post a picture of the movement, the clearer and sharper, the better. For an open-face, screw back & bezel watch you can get good results by placing the movement on a flatbed scanner. We may be able to identify it by the shape of the plates. 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. Larry Jones has written up a useful article on Image Posting (http://www.larjones.com/data/imagehelp.html), which may be helpful. If you have a problem posting the picture, you can attach it to an e-mail to me (by clicking on the speeding letter at the top of my post) and I'll post it 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).
Kent