Slow train, fast train

No not about railroad watches as such but about the frequency at which a watch balance turns. By the middle of the 19th century lever watches were pretty much standardised at 16,200 vibrations per hour (VPH). As watches got smaller and engineering tolerances got tighter makers started to move towards a faster beat of 18,000 VPH, usually referred to as a "Quick Train".

As usual the Americans moved first with Waltham changing the beat of their size 18 full plate 1877 model to 18,000 after launching it at 16,200 and the Illinois Watch Company changed quickly in about 1879.

The conservative English trade were, as usual, quite a way behind probably not helped by the investment required in redesigning their watches to change the gearing in the train and retooling costs which would have been more significant for the much smaller English companies than for the large American operations.

Generally it was the early 1890's before the Coventry and Lancashire trades started to use the faster train, led not unnaturally by newly introduced keyless three-quarter plate designs with some of the older full plate designs being allowed to die a natural death, particular Fusee movements,  and others being changed mid life or when Swiss Lever escapements started to replace the English Lever.

The London trade were even more conservative with some makers, notably P & A Guye and J.W. Benson persisting with the slower train up until around about the first World War. The lovely Benson Ludgate pictured was made in 1912 still running at 16,200 which does give it a very nice "majestic" tick.

Wrist watches, as one might expect, continued the development and my 1980s Rolex runs at 19,800 VPH with later ones running even faster.

Waltham Display Case

Click on the image for a larger view

As described in some detail in my post "the standard watch case" buyers could at some retail outlets configure their own watch by selecting a case, movement, dial etc. and then to have the watch assembled for them on the premises

The Waltham display cases as shown here could be used to display a selection of movements to help the customer decide. I suspect the hole in the base was used to bolt it down to stop people making off with a potentially valuable movement.

Now this type of case can be used to simply display the movement or to use it as a desk watch.

Click on the image for a larger view

The back of the case has a second crystal so that the movement, in this case a 17 jewel Waltham 1908 P.S. Bartlett from 1918, is visible.

A Double Own Label!

A 16J Errington, 1895.

At first sight this appeared to be a normal "own label" watch made for by C.H. Errington of Coventry for Curtis & Horespool of Leicester.

However looking at the hallmarks there are normal marks for Chester 1895 but one set of makers marks have been over-stamped by another.

Under high magnification and with a hint from another mark (see below) it is possible to read the second set of marks as belonging to Alfred Moss Jacobs & Co (Watch Makers), 18 Cross St, Hatton Garden, London.

The original marks are probably those of Errington.

Whats in beat?

A Swiss lever escapement

If you have ever set up a pendulum clock you will know that it is important to level the movement so that the pendulum swings equally to the right and left of a centre line that is perpendicular to the base of the movement, this will help in timekeeping, make the clock easier to start and, if it is driven by a spring, it will be less likely to stop as the spring gets closer to being fully wound down. It will also result in a nice even "tick - tock". 

It is the same with a watch except that it is now the balance wheel which has to swing an equal amount left and right from it's "in beat" position  - which for a Swiss Lever escapement is when the impulse jewel, balance staff and the lever pallet arbor are in alignment with the movement at rest. Its a little more complicated for an English lever with the pallet tangential to the escape wheel.

 

Before the advent of electro-mechanical and now computerised escapement analysers watch makers and repairers had to adjust  watches to be in beat by visual alignment and listening to the movement through a type of stethoscope, it is impressive how they achieved the accuracy that they did but some errors are fairly easy to detect by listening to the watch.

 

This is my Waltham 1899 Riverside Maximus from 1901, the movement is 0.3 milliseconds (mSec) out of beat which at a nominal rate of 18,000 vibrations per hour (VHP) is an error of 0.17% - that is as close to perfect as you are likely to hear from a 114 year old watch so run the video to see what it sounds like.

 

 

The next video is of  a job in process and the movement is currently out of beat by 2.1 mSec or 10%, run this video and you should notice the arrhythmia.

Correcting an out of beat movement is likely to be a combination of reforming or tweaking the hairspring (in this case it needs major reshaping due to previous tampering and there is a real possibility of work hardening causing the spring to break when adjustments are made), turning the roller or preferably the hairspring collet on the balance staff to improve alignment and possibly some adjustment of the banking for fine tuning.

A Rare Rotherham and a bit about hairspings & balances.

A Size 12 Rotherham for Hoefler &
Co of Devenport. 19 Jewels, 1901.

This is at first sight a normal high end size 12 Rotherham with 19 jewels but two things make it unusual, first is still has an original watch paper in the back as described in my last post, but more important is the very rare balance assembly.

Normally these movements have a cut compensating balance with a normal steel Breguet hairspring, however in the late 1890's a new alloy known as "Elenvar" was devised by Charles Édouard Guillaume (who got the 1920 Nobel prize for physics for the development), its key property was that unlike steel its flexibility (modulus of elasticity) did not change with temperature. When used as a hairspring it removed the need for a compensating balance.

A very rare solid balance with an
Elenvar Breguet hairspring.

Most companies implemented the Elenvar hairspring with a screwed balance which allowed the balance to be balanced fairly quickly (as a car wheel with a new tyre) and the weight and number of screws could be used to adjust the moment of inertia to match the hairspring to make the watch run too time. 
 
With this movement Rotherham tried a different route and used a traditional 3 armed solid balance which is probably gold. Balancing and tuning was done by removing slight amounts of material from the balance as can be seen from the picture to the right..

This is the only watch I have seen with this arrangement and it is likely that Rotherham only made a few, probably because the amount of skilled work required to set up the balance would more than likely have made it more expensive than the normally sprung cut compensating balance.

A rare pair of papers.

click the picture for a larger view

It is very rare these days to find watches with watch papers intact (they are collectable in their own right), I had only 2 or 3 from the last 600 watches. And today two turned up together, I knew one was coming but the second was a nice surprise.

 

The papers were used for advertising and would have been put in by sellers or repairers and occasionally you find a watch with a stack of them but usually they are glued together, to the case and / or are falling to pieces. Both of these are original to the watch and have the same retailers names as are shown on the watch faces.

 

The blue one is on a Rotherham from 1901 retailed by Hoefler of Devonport. The watch itself is something rather special - watch this space!

The red paper is on a Waltham 1908-610 half hunter sold by Harral of Barnsley, it has the serial number of the movement on it and is dated 11 years after the watch was made so presumably they were warranting a repair or they had bought back the watch and had resold it.

Dating Movements by Cyma & Tavannes

I recently had a query on dating these movements so have posted the answer here so I'll not have to do it again.

The serial number on these movements are under the dial as show to the right. My dating is based on a reasonable number of watches, listed below, in hallmarked silver or gold movements. The sample is heavily biased to watches retailed by J.W. Benson, largely because other retailers frequently used Swiss hallmarked silver cases which do not carry a date mark. Benson appear to have switched from Revue to Tavannes in about 1932 the database is only good for the 1930s.

It must be remembered that a movement might not go straight into a case which itself may have been on the shelf for a while so there will be some overlap, also the hallmarking years of the various assay houses are not in line with each other or the with calendar but the difference is small and the date is likely to be accurate to plus or minus a year.  (updated Feb 2017)

Serial	Date
4,322,549	1908
12,487,883	1919
14,708,666	1919
13,079,475	1921
14,262,246	1924
15,485,579	1926?
15,485,952	1926?
15,939,146	1926
17,482,498	1929?
16,624,975	1930?
17,865,828	1932
17,886,973	1932
17,888,724	1932
17,888,811	1931
17,889,975	1932
17,899,152	1931
17,899,219	1932
17,889,918	1932
17,902,501	1932
17,903,525	1932
17,903,625	1932
17,908,930	1932
17,909,034	1932
17,909,035	1932
17,944,833	1933
17,944,871	1933
17,966,044	1933
17,970,131	1933
18,045,354	1935
18,045,567	1935
18,050,727	1935
18,052,802	1936
18,055,283	1936
18,055,497	1936
18,055,498	1936
18,055,544	1936
18,066,750	1935
18,070,392	1936
18,076,649	1936
18,090,883	1936
18,112,605	1937
18,112,379	1936
18,113,219	1937
18,141,556	1937
18,146,434	1937
18,146,664	1938
18,199,372	1937
18,240,750	1938
18,245,978	1938
18,246,001	1938
18,252,273	1940	Benson stock?
18,253,220	1939
18,256,774	1938
18,265,158	1938
18,268,000	1940
18,276,566	1947?