Naughty Mr Ehrhardt.

This is a 1910 series by Wm Ehrhardt branded "The British Watch Co" one of their trading names after 1921. They come up very infrequently and this was the first one that required some work on the winding and setting mechanism and what did I find?

Ehrhardt. had ripped off the design of the shifting sleeve setting mechanism from the Waltham 1899/1908 models. They are in fact identical and to fix this watch I used a small piece part from a Waltham.

Not that it did them much good as they stopped manufacturing not long after this example was made whilst Waltham continued making pocket watches until just after WWII and wrist watches until 1957.

Hunter vs Open Faced construction:

You may think it is a trivial change to turn an Open Faced watch to a Hunter by just changing the position of the winder. However on a keyless watch there is normally rather more to it as these photo's of Rotherham 19 jewel movements from 1896 demonstrate. Although many of the internal components are the same (if the watches are the same size) you can see that the Hunter on the right is a near mirror image of the open faced on the left.

How not to clean a movement

An unsigned Benson "Bank" type
cleaned with metal polish.
(Click for a larger view)

In a previous post I explained in some detail how I clean a watch movement, here we have an example of what can happen if metal polish is used too vigorously.

This movement is a recently restored unsigned J.W. Benson "Bank" type which I believe to have been made by P & A Guye as explained here.

At some time in the past, probably fairly recently, metal polish has been used to clean the top plate, this has removed the gilt finish.

Although it looks rather better than the picture would suggest the top plate no longer matches the balance cock or the bottom plate and the value of the watch has been substantially reduced.

You have been warned!

Watch Identification

Many English and Swiss manufacturers did not mark their products when they were to be sold on by another maker or a re-seller.

I am sometimes asked how the maker can be identified, frequently of course they can't be, particularly when the movement was from a small English maker or from many of the Swiss makers, when, particularly in the late 19th century,  several makers made what was essentially the same movement.

The task is not helped by some makers imitating the cosmetic features of a more famous maker such as Omega or Waltham. Others movements were deliberately made to appear to be a classic English 3/4 plate or a Waltham 1883 model with the normal French markings of A / R for fast / slow removed so as not to give the game away.

On some occasions identification it is down to experience and comparing an unmarked example with a movement that is marked, although perhaps under a different name such as Vertex which was a trade name of Revue Thommen.

Just occasionally a movement marked for a re-seller slips through that does have a trade mark or name on it. This high grade Benson just finish restoration is, I think, only the second example of a Revue for Benson that I have seen which does have a trade mark.

Waltham 1899 Riverside Maximus.

Here at last is a Riverside Maximus, in fact two of them! Except for a few specials and limited editions, the Premier Maximus (think £20k++ in a London store) and the rare American Watch Co Bridge model, this is the highest grade of watch made by Waltham.

Left: Waltham 1899 Riverside Maximus, 23J, 1901 and right 1902.
Click any image for a larger view.

The 1902 example opened up.

Waltham developed the 1899 Vanguard for railroad use, although many were  not used as such, the Riverside Maximus with essentially the same mechanicals was designed purely for the luxury goods market. Production was small with only 13,800 made (another source shows 14,600) of which 10,900 had 23 Jewels (rather than 21) and 7,050 were open faced with 23 jewels.

Production runs were small ranging from 100 to occasionally 500, the older of these two watches is from the third run of 23 jewelled open faced movements. The movement plates are damascened to the back whilst the face pate has a jewelled finish.

The  movement has a gold train, except for the escape wheel which is steel. Top plate jewels are set in raised gold mounts, the barrel is jewelled and there are four diamond cap jewels to the balance and escape with the rest being "fine ruby and sapphires".

Like the Vanguard it is adjusted to temperature, isochronism and five positions and it has micro adjustment to the Breguet sprung cut compensating balance with a double roller

The three piece dials have lettering in a font reserved for the Maximus, the Roman dial on the left is particularly rare with one selling recently for almost $300.

Cleaning watch movements.

Face plate of a movement by the
Lancashire Watch Co before cleaning

I was recently asked on Facebook how I cleaned the particularly dirty watch movement shown, that reply whilst covering the essentials was necessarily brief so here is the full story.

The obvious thing to do and the recommendation of most books on watch maintenance for the amateur, is to use metal polish and indeed this in combination with other techniques will work and can be a quick way of getting the top plate of a movement clean and shiny [see this later post for an example], however there are some significant disadvantages firstly it is purely a cosmetic exercise not getting into the nooks and crannies of the watch or helping with the cleaning of the critical moving parts and secondly there is a real risk or removing the gilding from a gilt movement or the often very thin nickel or other coating frequently found on Swiss watches. The better method is not cheap as it requires the purchase of special cleaning and rinsing fluids and an ultrasonic cleaner cleaner.

The fluids are designed to allow the cleaning of “complete movements” as it says on the label. I do not think this is a good idea for old pocket watches, particularly those with motor barrels that can not be removed without taking the movement to pieces, as the fluid will interact with the oil in the barrel making it ineffective and judging from a few movements I have had in that have been done this way and from my experience with leaving too much oil on the movement before cleaning, it is likely to cause bad staining of the movement as the mixture spreads over the watch. In any case if the movement is to be cleaned properly then it needs to be taken to pieces so its best to do that up front.

This is the way I do it:

 

The same LWC movement after cleaning

 1. The movement is first broken down into its major parts, the top plate being removed together with the train, escapement and motor barrel. I leave the winding and setting gear in place if it is fixed in as the components are too small to easily handle. The mainspring is removed from the barrel.

2. Any obvious oil on the plates, barrel etc. is removed with tissue or a cloth, then loose material removed with a tooth brush with some mentholated spirits if necessary to get rid of thickened oil and other significant deposits. 

3. Everything goes into the cleaner for 10 minutes. Whilst ultrasonic cleaning is a relatively gentle process it does lighten gilding a little, particularly on very old watches, and it is best not to over do it, a really dirty piece might get and extra five minutes but no more. 

4. Pieces are then put into a rinsing fluid to get rid of the solvents and to chemically remove any water that might be present. After patting dry with tissue and blow drying the hairspring they are left to dry before the next stage. 

At this point it is worth mentioning one additional cleaning problem that may have to addressed. Sellers of old watches, on eBay in particular, are eager to be able to describe them as “working” or “ticking” so are liable to soak them in oil (lengthening part 2 of the cleaning process) to get them moving and occasionally spraying the whole movement with WD40 or similar. The later process will undoubtedly cause the hairspring to get coated in oil, the former will only probably do so. This will mean that although the watch may tick the coils of the hairspring will stick together and if the watch runs for more than a few seconds it will typically run  fast and erratically. The same effect may happen naturally over a very long period through corrosion or leakage of oil from the barrel. In both cases it is unlikely that the ultrasonic cleaning will be enough and it will be necessary to resort to some very strong solvents to clean up the hairspring.  

5. Some of the winding gear may be removed for inspection at this stage and, particularly on some English keyless movements, to allow easier reassembly of the movement.

And the top plate of the same.

6. As the movement is put back together everything gets a final hand cleaning with a toothbrush which should remove any lingering pieces of crud and in particular fluff and hairs which frequently get wound up in the wheels. Smoothing broaches, peg wood and other implements are also used to make sure jewels, pivot holes etc. are clean. This is also the time to visually check that everything is complete, undamaged and the correct shape.

7. After reassembly the movement is wound and immediately put onto the escapement analyser to make sure that the new mainspring is not over strong which among other things threatens to break the impulse jewel if the balance wheel turns by more than 360 degrees.

Some watches may run well immediately and can be given an initial regulation, using the analyser, and adjustments to get it into beat and to reduce any positional errors, others will take their time to get going but all need to run for 24 hours before going on the analyser again. If I am fortunate that will be the movement done, if not it could mean a lot of work making repairs, fiddling with the hairspring, etc.

What's common? Standardisation in the Swiss industry.

Well, you have probably guessed that they are by the same maker and you would be right, they are all by Tavannes, the two on the left were made within a few weeks of each other probably in 1922, the one on the right for Benson in 1936.

But there is a bit more too it than that. By the time these movements were made the Swiss had gone a long way down the path of standardisation. Apart from the obvious differences in the top plate / cock / bridge design and the additional screw holes etc in the face plate to accommodate them, these three movements are, except also for the type and quality of the finish, essentially the same with all of the wheels, the setting mechanism, the balance staffs, etc  interchangeable when new.

The  movement in the centre arrived with a very bent centre wheel caused by someone pressing the barrel against the wheel when taking the barrel out, so rather than trying to straighten it I repaired the movement by taking a centre wheel from a scrapped Benson (Tavannes) from c 1935, like the one on the right, which fitted perfectly and required only a trivial adjustment to the cannon pinion to get it all working. A small worn part in the setting mechanism was also replaced from the same scrapped movement. If only old English movements could be repaired as easily!

The fact that the two left hand movements have serial numbers in excess of 13 million also gives an indication of the scale of manufacture that the Swiss companies were now achieving; in 1925 the Swiss [population c 3.8 million] were making about 19 million watches a year whereas the USA [population c 120 million] were making c 9 million and the English industry was essentially dead.

 Scale and lagging behind in standardisation, two of the reasons why the English watch trade went belly up.