There may also be a number on the inside of the case, and maybe the name of the maker. Check for hallmarks on a sterling silver or gold case. There are three or four logos used on silver to identify the country of origin and date.
Crowns or Buttons
Gold marks are often in logo form as well; the crown and sometimes the rose are the indicators of English gold. Gold watches may have the gold karat content within the logo, or they may have a number like. Gold-filled or gold-plated pocket watchcases were common. Read the information carefully to determine the metal content of the case, as this will aid in dating the watch.
Dating elgin pocket watch | Axe Bat Blog
This information will require a loupe or magnifying glass to see. Research the hallmarks on a website of silver marks or gold marks to date the watchcase. Silver hallmarks may be researched on the website see Resources below , and gold hallmarks are detailed at The British Horological Institute website.
Check the manufacturer and the serial number to date the pocket watch. Compare the dates of the watch and the case. Similar dates for the watchcase and the watch movement should indicate that the timepiece is in its original case, and will provide an estimated date for the pocket watch.
Linda Richard has been a legal writer and antiques appraiser for more than 25 years, and has been writing online for more than 12 years. Richard holds a bachelor's degree in English and business administration. She has operated a small business for more than 20 years. She and her husband enjoy remodeling old houses and are currently working on a s home. Things Needed Loupe or magnifying glass Paper and pen.
Tip Some pocket watches show the dates of repairs inside the case. Watches of any quality will be jeweled. A jewel in a mechanical watch is a small, shaped piece of a hard mineral. Ruby and sapphire are most common. Diamond, garnet, and glass are also seen. Starting in the early 20th century, synthetic jewels were almost universally used. Before that time, low grade natural jewels which were unsuitable as gemstones were used. In either case, the jewels have virtually no monetary value. The most common types of jewels are hole jewels.
Hole jewels are disks normally flying saucer shaped which have a carefully shaped and sized hole. The pivot of an arbor rides in this hole. The jewel provides an extremely smooth and hard surface which is very wear resistant, and when properly lubricated, very low friction. Thus, hole jewels reduce both friction and wear on the moving parts of a watch. Cap jewels are always paired with hole jewels, and always with a conically shaped pivot. The cap jewels are so called because they "cap" the hole jewels and control the axial movement of the arbor, preventing the shoulder of the pivot contacting the hole jewel.
For a properly designed hole and cap jewel system, the arbor pivot bears on the cap jewel as a pin point on a thin film of oil. Thus, a hole and cap jewel offer lower friction and better performance across different positions compared with simply a hole jewel. The roller jewel, also called the impulse jewel or simply impulse pin, is a thin rod of ruby or sapphire, usually in the shape of a letter "D". The roller jewel is responsible for coupling the motion of the balance wheel to that of the pallet fork. Pallet jewels are on the pallet fork and interact with the escape wheel.
They are the surfaces which, 5 times a second in a typical escapement, lock the gear train of the watch and then transfer power to the balance wheel. A jeweled watch with a lever escapement should contain at least 7 jewels.
The seven jewels are; 2 hole jewels and 2 cap jewels for the pivots of the balance wheel staff arbor , 1 impulse roller jewel, and 2 pallet jewels. More highly jeweled watches add jewels to other pivots, starting with the pallet fork, then the escape wheel, fourth wheel, third wheel, then finally the center wheel.
Jeweling like this to the third wheel adds eight jewels, giving 15 jewels in total. Jeweling to the center wheel adds two more giving 17 jewels in total. Thus, a 17 jewel watch is considered to be fully jeweled. With American makers, however, it was common on low-end movements to jewel to the third wheel on only the top visible plate of the watch. This gives a total of 11 jewels, but looks identical to a 15 jewel watch unless the dial is removed. Since watches with 15 jewels and less are often not marked as to the jewel count, extreme caution must be exercised when purchasing movements which appear to be 15 jewels.
Additional jewels beyond 17 are used to either add cap jewels, or to jewel the mainspring barrel of the watch. Watches with 19 jewels, particularly those made by Elgin and Waltham, will often have a jeweled mainspring barrel.
Alternatively a 19 jewel watch will have additional cap jewels on the escape wheel. The timekeeping value of jewels beyond 17 for a time-only movement is often debated. Greater jewel counts are often associated with better quality watch movements. While it is true that expensive movements often have higher jewel counts, the jewels themselves are not the reason for this.
The jewels themselves add essentially no monetary value, and beyond 17 offer a negligible improvement in timekeeping ability and in movement life. Most of the cost of a more expensive watch is associated with better quality finishing and, more importantly, with a greater number of adjustments. Pocket watch movements are occasionally engraved with the word "Adjusted", or "Adjusted to n positions". This means that the watch has been tuned to keep time under various positions and conditions. There are eight possible adjustments:. Positional adjustments are attained by careful poising ensuring even weight distribution of the balance- hairspring system as well as careful control of the shape and polish on the balance pivots.
Watch Cases and Crowns
All of this achieves an equalization of the effect of gravity on the watch in various positions. Positional adjustments are achieved through careful adjustment of each of these factors, provided by repeated trials on a timing machine. Thus, adjusting a watch to position requires many hours of labor, increasing the cost of the watch. Medium grade watches were commonly adjusted to 3 positions dial up, dial down, pendant up while high grade watches were commonly adjusted to 5 positions dial up, dial down, stem up, stem left, stem right or even all 6 positions.
Railroad watches were required, after , to be adjusted to 5 positions. Early watches used a solid steel balance. As temperature increased, the solid balance expanded in size, changing the moment of inertia and changing the timing of the watch. In addition, the hairspring would lengthen, decreasing its spring constant. This problem was initially solved through the use of the compensation balance.
The compensation balance consisted of a ring of steel sandwiched to a ring of brass. These rings were then split in two places. The balance would, at least theoretically, actually decrease in size with heating to compensate for the lengthening of the hairspring. Unfortunately, a watch so adjusted would run slow at temperatures between these two.
The problem was completely solved through the use of special alloys for the balance and hairspring which were essentially immune to thermal expansion. Such an alloy is used in Hamilton's E and B. Isochronism was occasionally improved through the use of a stopworks, a system designed to only allow the mainspring to operate within its center most consistent range. The most common method of achieving isochronism is through the use of the Breguet overcoil.
This allows the hairspring to "breathe" more evenly and symmetrically. Two types of overcoils are found - the gradual overcoil and the Z-Bend. The gradual overcoil is obtained by imposing a two gradual twists to the hairspring, forming the rise to the second plane over half the circumference; and the Z-bend does this by imposing two kinks of complementary 45 degree angles, accomplishing a rise to the second plane in about three spring section heights. The second method is done for esthetic reasons and is much more difficult to perform. Due to the difficulty with forming an overcoil, modern watches often use a slightly less effective "dogleg", which uses a series of sharp bends in plane to place part of the outermost coil out of the way of the rest of the spring.
Pocket watches are not common in modern times, having been superseded by wristwatches. Up until the start of the 20th century, though, the pocket watch was predominant and the wristwatch was considered feminine and unmanly. In men's fashions, pocket watches began to be superseded by wristwatches around the time of World War I, when officers in the field began to appreciate that a watch worn on the wrist was more easily accessed than one kept in a pocket. A watch of transitional design, combining features of pocket watches and modern wristwatches, was called trench watch or "wristlet".
However, pocket watches continued to be widely used in railroading even as their popularity declined elsewhere. The use of pocket watches in a professional environment came to an ultimate end in approximately Hanhart was a brand which was used by the Germans, [ citation needed ] although the German U-Boat captains and their allied counterparts were more likely to use stopwatches for timing torpedo runs. For a few years in the late s and s three-piece suits for men returned to fashion, and this led to small resurgence in pocket watches, as some men actually used the vest pocket for its original purpose.
As vests have long since fallen out of fashion in the US as part of formal business wear, the only available location for carrying a watch is in a trouser pocket. The more recent advent of mobile phones and other gadgets that are worn on the waist has diminished the appeal of carrying an additional item in the same location, especially as such pocketable gadgets usually have timekeeping functionality themselves.
In some countries a gift of a gold-cased pocket watch is traditionally awarded to an employee upon their retirement. The pocketwatch has regained popularity due to steampunk , a subcultural movement embracing the arts and fashions of the Victorian era, where pocketwatches were nearly ubiquitous. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Pocket Watch Cases
This article is about the portable timepiece. For the Dave Grohl album, see Pocketwatch album.
For the succulent plant, see Crassula muscosa. American system of watch manufacturing.