Two Tone Waltham 1892 Royal

A rare and very attractive size 18 1892-Royal Two Tone from 1896/7 just finished restoration. It is pendant set and the Swiss Lever movement has 17 Jewels and a Breguet sprung cut compensating balance with single roller.

Probably as much that is known about the production history of this  grade and model is on this specialist site so I will not repeat it here.

Web Site

I understand that some customers cannot access the web site, neither was I this morning but I thought it was fixed by lunch time. I am chasing the service provider to find out what is going on and hopefully they will sort things out!

February Market and Stock Update

In the three months to the end of January I sold 90 watches which is far in excess of the rate I can restore them as a “one man band”. During February the number sold dropped significantly, probably as a result of very low inventory, seasonal factors and a bias in my inventory towards more expensive American railroad watches over the last couple of months. But still inventory only increased slightly.

Good quality English watches continue to be in very short supply, I have not had a restorable English Benson or a Rotherham in since November and the next level down is almost as bad. I have therefore been buying a lot of railroad and other high grade Waltham watches from America and probably now have the best selection of these watches available in UK if not in Europe. More are on the way but anecdotal evidence suggests that the US market is also tightening which suggests a worldwide shortage of good quality pocket watches and a general increase in prices of watches for restoration, as I have seen here in the last 4 – 6 months.

With the Salmon and Trout fishing season starting shortly in this part of the world I will “only” be working 4 or 5 days a week (this is meant to be a “retirement” business!), so the current level of demand would be about right for me but enquiries are starting to increase again with the approaching spring wedding season so I anticipate that availability will not improve significantly in the medium term.

The Waltham Equity

This is one of a series of posts illustrating the main grades of Waltham size 16 watches, primarily the 1899 & 1908 models. Note that specifications did change over time, the description below being typical.

The Equity was originally sold as being made by the Equity Watch Company of Boston and was not associated with Waltham, later after it became generally known that it was by Waltham it was bought in from the cold as a Waltham model.

It is essentially a Waltham 1908-Traveler with the variant plate design but in nickel.  The movement has 7 Jewels, a Swiss lever escapement with a Breguet sprung cut compensating balance. It is unadjusted and has a single roller. About 54,500 were made in total.

 

The example shown is from 1918 and is signed by Waltham.

 

 

 

Double Watch Frustration.

This recently restored watch bought together two very common frustrations in restoring old English watches.

The first is common to all types of watch, and it is people’s belief that drowning a watch in oil will get it working, even in this case when it had a broken main spring.

 

This movement was covered in a recently applied film of an oil far too heavy for use anywhere near a watch causing components to stick together and to my tools. The hairspring was drenched with most of the coils stuck together and could not possibly work.

 

The cleaning process took about three times as long as usual even with the help of an ultrasonic cleaner and some serious de-greasing agents. Fortunately it was successful and the movement is now running exceptionally well after getting a new mainspring and a lot of TLC. 

The second frustration is that I do not know who made it, a recurring problem with watches from the fragmented English industry. This 13J English Lever was made in Coventry in 1893 from a Prescott ebauché - a kit of the main parts of the watch. So all I can say is that if the serial number represents the number actually made it is by one of the smaller Coventry makers.

Waltham 1888-Riverside

This is one of a series of posts illustrating the main grades of Waltham size 16 watches, in this case an 1888-Riverside.

The 1888 was the forerunner of the 1899 model and is very similar, apart from the shape of the plates and balance cock there are two main differences, firstly the winding and setting mechanism is wholly contained within the movement with a captive winding stem rather than having the stem captive to the case with the in/out position set there as was the case with the 1899  model which used the newly introduced "standard" case.

The second difference is related in that the movement is secured into the case with a pin and a single case screw rather than two case screws.

The Waltham production records show about 37,000 15 jewel and  20,000 17 jewel versions of the Riverside, of the 17J versions about half were hunters and the rest open faces or undefined. In addition one 19 jewel version and thirty seven 16 jewel versions are recorded.

Shown is a recently restored example made in 1894, it has an adjusted17 jewel movement, the  Swiss lever escapement has a Breguet sprung cut compensating balance with micro adjuster and double roller.

An "In Beat" Design by W. Ehrhardt.

W. Ehrhardt Full Plate Keyless. 1920

At first glance this is a fairly standard full plate keyless watch, albeit a very late one from 1920. However things  are rather different under the covers, instead of a normal balance cock this design has the balance cock mounted on a ring that fits into the top plate of the watch.

This design makes the watch rather more robust, slightly slimmer (although it is still considerably thicker than a three quarter plate) and makes it very easy to get the watch "in beat".

Being in beat means that the balance action is symmetrical swinging an equal distance in each direction and that the balance staff, impulse jewel and pallet arbour are in perfect alignment. If you think in terms of a long case clock the "tick" equals the "tock" and it has a steady rhythm.

This can normally be a tricky operation involving quite a lot of work and often much fiddling with the hairspring which always has some risk attached to it. With this design the impulse jewel can be lined up simply by rotating the balance cock to the correct position and locked there with the two screws that hold it to the movement.



Three views of the movement, left before fitting the balance cock, the lever pallet can just be seen in the "well" where the balance fits, centre is the balance cock and regulator in place and right with the balance assembly in place (click on the image for a larger view).

After initial adjustment this example was within beat to 0.14%,  better than my  modern Rolex which is still excellent at 0.45%.

Unfortunately it did little for Ehrhardt who was out of business shortly after, or for watch design as the full plate movement was already obsolete by the time this was made, replaced by the three-quarter and split plate movements.