Most visitors online was 4107 , on 14 Jan 2023
Fred...
- Interesting that no mention of the 24 jewel Bunn Special. The 1895 ad date should be very close to the introduction of these.
- Surprised to see that they were promoting the gilt Bunn still with this ad. I've seen 1890-ish ads promoting this movement but apparently there were still a few left to move out as late as the mid-90's. These would be movements with serial numbers in the low 300,000 range, presumably "modernized" by finishing as pure stemwind with Chalmer's regulators and Breguet hairsprings, but still a big serial gap between these and the other current Illinois products.
...
To the Getty movements I would disagree, as the lack of factory markings is also very common among the top quality 3 finger bridge Getty grades such as the 189, 181, 178, and 187. Factory movement markings don't appear on the 189 and 187 until some years later into their production, and to my knowledge factory movement markings are never found on the short lived early Getty grades 178 and 181.Also interesting is the mention of Illinois making lower quality adjusted mvt but without their name on them. Methinks this helps to explain the numerous Getty model adjusted mvts with private label dials and nothing marked on the mvt.
Regarding the lever set only, Illinois (like Aurora and Columbus) was sued by Elgin and Waltham (no collusion there, eh!!!! Big business (money) never changes.) for their pendant setting watches and, eventually, lost.
Fred, you would know better than I.To the Getty movements I would disagree, as the lack of factory markings is also very common among the top quality 3 finger bridge Getty grades such as the 189, 181, 178, and 187. Factory movement markings don't appear on the 189 and 187 until some years later into their production, and to my knowledge factory movement markings are never found on the short lived early Getty grades 178 and 181.
Good info on the pendent-sets and makes sense then why these were dropped in the 1890's from the 16 and 18 size lines.
A very interesting and I think telling aspect of American Watch Manufacturing is what the companies did with slow moving inventory. Inventory was slow moving for a number of reasons. Some slow moving inventory did not move because it was bad stuff that was produced at a time when better stuff was being produced for the same price. Other slow moving inventory was incredible stuff that was so high end and so pricey that there weren't enough rich folk to buy it all at once. The latter dead/slow moving inventory can be very interesting. Anyway, dead inventory says almost as much about the market and about product development than the popular stuff.Another interesting bit from the ad is that Illinois was still marketing their rather low grade IWC 7 j mvts. They made a ton of these during the 1880s.
What are peoples thoughts on these specific variant production numbers? Are some of the runs listed for these variants just plain nickel Bunn Specials.