Three size 16 Waltham movements.



 

 

 

Some work in process, three good Waltham movements all of which have nice Gold plated cases now being cleaned. From left to right (click the image for a larger view):

1899-Riverside, 17J, Pendant set, 1900/01.
1908-Crescent St, 21J, Lever set, 1926/27.
1908-Vanguard, 23J, Lever set, 1935/36.

The Riverside has a particularly interesting dial, watch this space! Also coming soon will be an illustrated review of all of the commonly available size 16 movements by Waltham.

“Hallmarks” may not be what they seem.

A watch arrived today signed on the movement and dial by Russell of Liverpool a well-established and reputable firm, initially watch makers who during the first half of the twentieth century had a large business reselling imported watches. This one was advertised as being Sterling Silver and “running strong”, it isn’t but that’s another story.

The pictures on the advert were too small to make out the detail of the “hallmarks”. It turned out to have the mark of Arthur George Rendal (Importers) of Clerkenwell, London (not shown on the picture) , after that things started to go wrong, a mark 0.925 was there to indicate Sterling Silver, that is not an official hallmark but does appear from time to time on imported items and 0.935 appears on Swiss silver.

The other marks are meaningless and although they are designed to look like hallmarks, they aren’t.

You have been warned!

Who really made the Benson “Bank” watch?

A horological who-done-it.

The history of J.W. Benson is a bit of a mystery partly because retailers, particularly those who also made their own movements frequently did not want to let on who was making their product, but primarily in this case because all of their records were destroyed by German bombing in 1942.

The accepted view, reported by Cutmore[i] and others, has been that Benson made the “Ludgate”, “Bank” and “Field” models in-house and bought in movements from the English trade, primarily from Rotherham and P & A Guye and from a number of Swiss makers.

However as Priestly[ii] reports a minority view suggests that the “Bank” was in fact made by P & A Guye.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the minority are correct, at least for early versions! Here are the main reasons why:

• Cutmore says that P & A Guye made for Benson but I have handled dozens of Benson signed English movements and I have identified almost all of them and none of those were made by Guye, most being made by Rotherham, principally their excellent 19 jewel ¾ plate.
• P & A Guye were a medium sized company by English standards but I have only come across 2 or 3 identifiable Guye movements from over 400 English movements examined. So where are they all?
• But I have, in the last couple of years, come across at least half a dozen movements in cases by John Woodman of Clerkenwell and all unsigned except by the retailer, that are identical to the “Bank” and on one occasion I put the top plate from a signed Bank onto one of these unidentified movement and it worked.

Cutmore speculates that Benson may have made for the trade but I now believe it was the other way about and that the “Bank” was made for Benson by P & A Guye who also sold the movement to small retailers to sell under their own name.

In a 1930s sale catalogue Benson claimed to be making the Bank in-house but the description does not match that of the early "Bank" so it is possible that as Guye moved out of watch production into related watch activity some time after 1905 Benson took over production, possibly with a revised model.

The Ludgate, Field and their derivatives I am sure were made by Benson.

Update Feb 2017: Two recent finds and subsequent analysis have enabled me to further tie down the relationship between Benson & Guye, explained in my post J.W. Benson and P & A Guye two London watchmakers, later effectively one?

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[i] Watches 1850 – 1980 M. Cutmore, David & Charles, 1989

 

[ii] Watch Case Makers of England, Philip Priestley, NAWCC Bulletin Supplement #20 Spring 1994

The Waltham 1908 Marquis

This version of the famous 1908 model was probably made for the English market and tastes having a gilt movement with blued screws in the English fashion. It is basically a 1908-Traveler with 15 Jewels or a 1908-620 with a gilt finish.

Production records show that 500 hunter "Marquis" movements were made with only 7 jewels, 6,200 15J Hunters and 5,300 15J Open Faced. They are not that common but not I think quite as rare as this and I suspect that many are recorded as "Export" or other models.

Here are two:


Top is a half Hunter from 1917 in an English Filled gold case by Dennison, by this time the nice screw set jewels had been replaced by machine set.

Bottom is an open faced version from  1912, in Filled Gold by the Illinois Watch Case Company of America.

More Posts on Facebook

The posts below were originally made on on Facebook and were added here when I started the Blog, the originals, some with comments and older posts are to be found there.

Progress?

Here we have two Waltham 1908 23j Vanguards, both are size 16 Rail Road Grade movements so will have had similar superior performance when manufactured. 

The on the left is from 1907 and has extensive damascening, gold mounted screw set jewels that are mainly ruby plus diamond end jewels on the balance.

 The one on the right has machine pressed synthetic jewels and is from 1940.

E-Mail Problems

Not for the first time Yahoo are having problems with their e-mail system, I am moving to GMail and have set up forwarding but if you were expecting a reply from me and have not received one, please try again.