top of page

Gear & Accessories

Public·7 members

Watch GR One Piece 819 GR



For 3/4": Premade factory assemblies and crimp specs available using ContiTech's one-piece non-skive B2- NPM-1212 hydraulic series fittings. Refer to the Industrial Hose Assembly Manual for crimp specifications. Also recommended are Campbell Fittings air hammer couplings to ensure a dedicated line for hydrocarbon use only.




Watch GR One Piece 819 GR



NB: this page is not a comprehensive reference of watch movements (of which there are hundreds, if not thousands). It is a small selection of otherwise unidentified old, mainly trench watch, movements that I have been able to positively identify.


For some companies there are more of their movements shown on the pages dedicated to them, these are: Longines, IWC, Stauffer, Son & Co., Aegler (who made watches for Rolex and Gruen amongst others).


The page doesn't show movements with maker's names on them, it identifies some otherwise unidentified movements found in the type of watches that I collect, which are principally Great War era men's wristwatches with 12 to 13 ligne movements. There are no modern (post-WW2) watches, electrical, battery or quartz watches.


The apparently huge variety of Swiss watches is explained by this phenomenon: once the basic layout in a round movement of the barrel, train wheels, escapement and balance was arrived at, there was little scope, let alone need, to change it. Manufacturers altered the appearance of their movements by changing the top plates, the cocks and bridges but the basic layout remained much the same. So long as all the pivot holes and screw holes are in the same places, the actual shape of the cocks and bridges is irrelevant.


Although American watch manufacturers supplied spare parts right from the start of their production, this was not the case for Swiss suppliers. The reason for this is that American manufacturers began with the intention of mass producing interchangeable parts by automatic machinery, which could make thousands of virtually identical components, many of which were not needed to fill orders but were held in stock as spares. The Swiss watch industry was later in its adoption of automatic machinery, meaning that the organised supply of spare parts by Swiss manufacturers began much later than in America.


There is also another factor to bear in mind about this method of identifying movements. In the nineteenth century, Swiss watch manufacturers didn't generally make spare parts available in an organised way. If a part was worn out or broken, then a watch repairers was usually expected to be able to make a replacement part. It seems to have been only around the 1940s that Swiss watch manufacturers started to make available spare parts and catalogues of parts like Flume, Bestfit, Swartchild etc. with illustrations of keyless work were published. This is shown by the dates of publication of the catalogues, but also by the fact that they usually illustrate the keyless work with an plate that forms the setting lever spring and has notches that act as the detent for the setting lever.


The image of the keyless work of a Marvin wristwatch illustrates the earlier type of mechanism with the detent separate from the cover plate. The cover plate is the sinuous yellow plate screwed to the bottom plate in two places. It is a rigid plate that doesn't move or flex when the keyless work is operated.


The setting lever is the right angled steel piece which engages with a groove on the stem just above the winding pinion. The yoke is the steel lever that engages with a groove on the sliding pinion; it is normally held in the winding position by the setting lever spring beneath the cover plate. When the crown and stem are pulled out, the heel on the lower end of the setting lever moves the yoke, which in turn moves the sliding pinion. A notch on the yoke acts as a detent which holds it and the sliding pinion in the hand setting position. Pressing the crown and stem back in makes the heel on the setting lever jump out of the detent and the setting lever spring returns the yoke to the winding position. If you mouse over the image you should see the mechanism move. On a tablet or phone you might need to click on it and then page back to reset it.


By the time the Bestfit and other similar movement identification books were introduced, which seems to have begun in the 1940s, most of the watches current at that time had cover plates with integral detents. The fingerprints in the Bestfit book can be used to fairly easily identify these movements.


The lignes dimension is written in short as three prime symbols ''' in a similar way to the double prime sign '' for an inch. For example 13''' means thirteen lignes, a common size for a man's wristwatch movement.


Watches were made in sizes from 2 lignes, a very small ladies' baguette movement, to 20 lignes or more for pocket watches. The ligne size is often not an exact measurement, it is more of a general classification of size, so don't expect a 13''' movement to measure exactly 293mm.


Swiss made men's trench wristwatches from the Great War often have a 13 ligne movement, such as a Longines 13.34, and a case size of about 35mm diameter excluding the lugs and crown. This is a nice size even today when the fashion is for larger watches. The case is about 5 mm larger than the movement.


References such as the Bestfit Catalogue list movements grouped into half lignes, or occasionally quarter lignes. The calculator below returns the ligne size to half a ligne, e.g. 12 or 13 ligne. The quarter ligne sizes are usually very few for men's size watches and are tacked on to the end of the half ligne sections, for a small watch movement you might need the quarter size.


It is a convention that watch movements are photographed with the pendant or winding stem at the top of the image. This is the way movements are pictured in all the reference books, so using the same orientation makes identification much easier.


Aegler supplied Rebberg movements to Wilsdorf & Davis, and also to a lot of other companies. In fact it is most likely that Aegler supplied complete, cased, watches. Companies in London that Aegler supplied, such as the fledgling Wilsdorf & Davis, were simple importation business operations with an office in London but no factory capability, either in Switzerland or in England to put movements into cases and test the finished watches. All the silver cases that are seen with Rebberg movements, and gold cases until 1915, were made in Switzerland, so it is clear that the movements would have been cased and the finished watches tested at the Aegler factory.


The image of the Rebberg Watch Co. movement is courtesy of eBay member allthatsparkles69. The image of the Rolex 13 ligne savonnette movement is of my grandfather's wristwatch movement. All the other movements here are by kind permission of Owen Gilchrist.


Beguelin supplied movements to The Rolex Watch Company that were used in Marconi, Unicorn and RolCo branded watches. BobBee sent me details of a Beguelin movement marked ADMIRALTY on the ratchet wheel with two curved arrows joined by a small circle. I have seen the same ratchet wheels on Aegler movements. Wilsdorf registered Admiralty as a brand on 1 December 1922.


Brian Daily has a watch with the movement marked Worcester and the case marked Beguelin. I have not been able to trace Worcester, but as the case is marked marked Beguelin it is probably one of their own "house" brands. Pritchard lists Avenir, Becosat, Beglin, Calan, Confidence, Damex, Idylle, Konig, Mithra, Tralin and The Stork as other brand and model names used by Beguelin in addition to Damas and Tramelan.


The first movement pictured here is from a trench watch with a black dial and fixed wire lug nickel case made by Dennison. It has the British Army military property broad arrow or "pheon" and a stores number on the case back. This appears to be one of the watches officially issued by the British Army beginning in 1917. It is slightly different from the group of movements in the section below; the click is different and the setting lever screw is in a slightly different place. But its similarity to the first of the movements in the group is obvious, the central bridge and the balance cock are very distinct shapes.


The five movements shown in the group below all have identically located setting lever screws, and all but the first have identical clicks. In all of these movements the keyless mechanism is identical, showing that they were all made by the one company. I have only shown this keyless mechanism once, from the last watch in the group. The bottom plate of that watch carries the BTCo. logo for a positive identification, the only one of the group that does. Thanks to Owen Gilchrist for allowing me to photograph these movements.


The first movement in the group below has no brand name. The next is branded Rolco on the ratchet wheel, the same movement was also used in Marconi and Unicorn watches. The next two are branded Ingersoll, the first on the ratchet wheel, the second with Ingersoll "Elite" engraved on the main cock and gold filled, and the next one with 16 jewels has no brand name on it. The final picture shows the bottom plate and keyless mechanism, which is identical in all of these movements.


Introduced in 1910, the Longines 13.34 savonnette movement was used in many wristwatches during the Great War. The number 13.34 shows that is a 13 ligne movement, the unique number 34 after the decimal place identifies the savonnette layout. At the same time a Lépine version was also introduced, the calibre 13.33.


The 13.34 ZZ movement is a variation on the basic design with the same barrel bridge shape but the three individual cocks of the third, fourth and escape wheels fused into a single bridge. This movement does not carry the Longines name, as required by many British retailers. This watch was sold by Mappin & Webb and carries their own "Mappin Campaign" name on the dial. The name is fired into the enamel and Longines told me that the requirement for this dial is recorded in their archives. 041b061a72


About

Welcome to the group! You can connect with other members, ge...
bottom of page