"The Military Watch" - Movement identification

[AshF]

Yes, yet another unidentified movement.  This was my grandfathers, born in 1909 he saw a lot but never talked about it.  I'd love to get this working again, the lower pivot of the 4th wheel is broken.  There are no marks on any of the bridges or main plate only what appears to be a serial number, 27089.  29.5mm diameter.  Any help identifying this would be great, many thanks.

[watchweasol]

This is where the best fitbooks are use full in identifying old watches. There was a down loadable copy on the site but was removed because of copyright issues. They are available on CD from Wm S McCaw as they hold the copyright, I believe they are $9  for the CD and it contains both books. A mine of information.

[Klassiker]

You could try removing the balance. Sometimes the markings are under there.

[Klassiker]

I looked on Ranfft but didn't find a good match. Closest I got was the AM 220.

[AshF]

14 hours ago, Klassiker said:

You could try removing the balance. Sometimes the markings are under there.

No, I've stripped it fully and there is nothing anywhere except the number 27089.

[JohnR725]

Ligne

17 hours ago, watchweasol said:

This is where the best fitbooks are use full in identifying old watches

at one time what existed was the fingerprint system. Found in a variety of watch material catalogs including bestfit. to make use you need the line size and that's measured on the dial side of the movement. unfortunately 29.5 does not come out as a standard size so it appears to be around 13 Ligne. then looking up best fit I'm not seeing it unfortunately.

then kind of a long shot is if you have the stem you can measure that. The third link normally used for finding replacement stem can be used to identify a movement. Then if you get the dimensions of the stem I can also look in the bestfit book as it lists parts by dimensions. then much later today L look in some of my other books.

 

https://blog.esslinger.com/watch-size-ligne-conversion-chart/

https://mccawcompany.com/product/bestfit-encyclopedia-books-111-111a-digital-download-pdf-version/

https://www.balancestaffs.com/product.php

 

[jdm]

21 hours ago, watchweasol said:

This is where the best fitbooks are use full in identifying old watches. There was a down loadable copy on the site but was removed because of copyright issues. 

 

[watchweasol]

Hi  Old Hippy   a brilliant gesture and one to be applauded  Thanks on behalf of those who down load the from the links and dont respond.      I have a searchable copy of both books which I find useful.  A tip tyo those who down load these books, put them on a flash drive

 as well as on the computer in case of accidents.  Thanks Old H.

 

 

 

[AshF]

6 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

if you have the stem you can measure that

Thank you for looking.

Forgive my ignorance, I'm not sure which bits of the stem to measure, I hope this is adequate?

[JohnR725]

just looking at your stem is telling me that this is going to be an extreme longshot. The problem with the reference books are that there are aimed at newer watches. But is still worth a try. I'm attaching an image that shows the specifications that are needed. if I did my math right the only dimension we get is 5.25 for the length labeled a in the  image which narrows it down to several stems. It be nice to have the rest of the mentions. Also I have another book from the 50s and I looked at the fingerprint system there because being an older book it has all their watches unfortunately I did not find this watch.

The problem with any of these systems are they assume that the watch was made a great enough quantity that spare parts were available. Or it came from a company that supplied spare parts. So somebody making a watch not supplying spare parts is unlikely to show up in any of these books.

that I've also snipped out an image of with the fingerprint system looks like.  but unfortunately looking at either stem number it doesn't appear to match your watch.

[KOwatch]

@Klassiker the AM220 is a good start, there's hints of this escape wheel cock and bridge shapes in the other larger AM movements on Ranfft as well

[AshF]

Many thanks for looking for me @JohnR725.  I will precisely measure those dimensions again and have look to see if there is a match.  I couldn't find that diagram with what ABCDEF mean so thank you for that.

I agree AM220 does look very close.  I'll add that to my ebay auto emailer to see if I can get a donna movement.

I guess nothing last forever.  At the very least, I can clean this watch up for display in the hope that at some point I can revive it.  Maybe if I get better at this hobby I can repivot it myself.

Again, thank you all for your input.

[eezy]

This my Red 12 trench watch with a 13L movement. It is stamped AM under the balance. I'd always identified it as a '220' because that is the only one listed on Ranfft of that era with a 13L.

Similarities? I don't know.