Help Identifying

[Sjk4x4]

I went to an estate sale at the corner and befriended the seller. I asked about watches and he told me he had some at home and since I seemed nice, he’d bring them to me. 

He had some nice pieces and after disassembling this pocket watch, I’m under the assumption it’s a no name.

The dial material is copper and I assume porcelain because it’s hand painted. The only word on the movement is “Garantee” and it’s my first cylinder escapement.

If anyone has clues to the movement manufacturer or dates, please comment

[KarlvonKoln]

I wish I could help more, but that's going to be a tough one.  I get the impression that this (likely) Swiss lever-set movement was made for the English or American market, since the balance cock reads "Slow" & "Fast" rather than Avance & Retard, but that's a guess.  
In your fifth picture, showing the various parts, the underside of the barrel bridge is depicted, off to the right there.  There seem to be two maker's marks on the bottom surface of the bridge by the locator pin.  Could we have a better, closer picture of those please?  Can your camera do that?
The bottom surface of the balance cock looks like it may have marks stamped on it also, but I think those just may be a portion of the serial number.  To be safe though, may we also have a good picture of it as well?  Or if they are just scuffs, then no worries.

[oldhippy]

Looks American to me with all that fancy work on the back plate.  

[KarlvonKoln]

You know, it could be American.  It gives that impression the more I look at it.  I don't see a lot of American cylinder movements, so I tend to think of them as a Swiss or French thing mostly, but there were a few here and there.  There's not a lot to go on, but I wonder which American makers dabbled with cylinders...

[oldhippy]

What does the writing say on the top plate?  

[nickelsilver]

I'm American and don't know of any native makers of cylinder movements. There were a lot of what's called "swiss fakes" which were swiss made movements mimicking the American style, and I'm sure some cylinder movements made it in that category (some swiss makers were producing cylinder movements up to the '20s, probably using up old stock against high demand).

[KarlvonKoln]

 

2 hours ago, oldhippy said:

What does the writing say on the top plate?  

"Garantee"

Edited April 28, 2021 by KarlvonKoln
typo

[KarlvonKoln]

1 hour ago, nickelsilver said:

I'm American and don't know of any native makers of cylinder movements. There were a lot of what's called "swiss fakes" which were swiss made movements mimicking the American style, and I'm sure some cylinder movements made it in that category (some swiss makers were producing cylinder movements up to the '20s, probably using up old stock against high demand).

I remember discussing Swiss fakes in other posts.  I've been researching and cannot yet come up with an American make that used cylinder movements either.  I was sure there was at least a couple, but maybe not.  Now, as far as English producers, I've heard of Dwerrihouse (sp?) who in fact would sell Dutch cylinder movements for the English market, casing them in "Colonial" brand cases.  And that *might* explain why it says "Fast & Slow" on the regulator.  But the more I look at this,  the more it temps me to speculate whether it might be a very early Swiss Fake.
But all in all, I really don't know yet what to make of it.

[Sjk4x4]

well, first off, i made a mistake by posting in the wrong area! Ill get better with time.

I wasnt exactly sure what to take pics of, so Ill have those others that have been asked for posted tomorrow.  I know the movement has pairs of digits stamped but i figured those were part numbers.  Ill get photos of any numbers and post.

 

The side of the movement does say swiss made on the main bridge. what a funny place for it! I havent looked up etymology of the spelling of guarantee being "garantee" There may be some time period it was a common spelling or region. For some reason, it strikes me as victorian 

 

The watches in with the rest were all american.  a couple elgin and westclocks   and  the elgin were from 1890 and 1900. This would be the outlier if its not american.

[oldhippy]

"Guarantee" that is not the English spelling. 

[KarlvonKoln]

It's slowly revealing itself.  So far we have:

- cylinder movement, for which I haven't yet tracked down an American maker.

- Stamped "Swiss"

- dressed up and decorated in American fashion

I'm with you @nickelsilver, I think we're looking at an early example of a "Swiss Fake".

[oldhippy]

How many dial feet has your dial got?

[oldhippy]

I have been looking into this and I'm sure this is not a swiss fake. The swiss faked American P/Watches because they were so expensive and high quality movements, they also had similar American names printed on the dials.  This movement is of very poor quality, no jewels for the train. The reason I asked about how many feet the dial has is this can also help as to if it's a fake or not. 

[Sjk4x4]

You guys are super sleuths! I appreciate the knowledge.

there are two dial feet, and I have no idea how this figures into the equation. Can you share?

the number I see is 5606 and I know there’s one more. I’ll have to take the movement further apart if it will help. This train wasn’t that big of deal to line up.

theres a filed section on the edge of the main palette and I don’t know if it was from the manufacturer or a repair. Either way, it’s a sloppy job of removing metal

 

is there anything else I can provide?

[oldhippy]

Two dial feet. Now we do have a problem, because American P/W's normally have three and the Swiss fakes have two. I cannot find out any info of Swiss fake cylinder P/W's. To be fair I'm not sure what we have here now. I was hoping it had three feet that would have cleared it up.

 

After all this it is steering us in the face the clue is Champion. I can confirm it is American. It might have a Dueber Champion grade case and a Hampden Champion grade movement.

 

[KarlvonKoln]

Well...this got complicated quickly.
With the two dial feet, the cylinder movement, and the cut of the escape wheel (perfect half-circle cuts, unlike Mudge) the "Swiss" stamping, the "Garantee" script, all in all I'm pretty certain that the movement, at least, is a Swiss one.  But maybe not intended to be a "fake" of anything.
As soon as I read that metal had been filed away, I began to look closer again.  The times that I've seen metal filed away from the outer edges of the surfaces on a movement, it was done to aid in getting the movement to fit into a case where it was tight in certain places.  I'm starting to speculate if this is an incident of someone wanting to put a Swiss movement into an American case, and doing what they can to make it fit?  Does it look that way to anyone else here?

[oldhippy]

It's not that easy to to fit a different movement into a case that isn't made for the movement. First you have to be able to line up the winding you have the height, the diameter and it needs to be able to fit properly in order for the case to close. The dial can cause problems for the bezel.  It isn't impossible but it is highly unlikely that it's a marriage.   

Who's to say the file markings haven't been made by someone that was inexperienced in re-casing this movement. An apprentice as an example.   

[Sjk4x4]

I think youre onto something. 

I shared a photo showing the filing. Not sure what it’s for however, it doesn’t line up with anything. 

After reading your case refitting description, I added a photo of some strange bend in the case lip. It seems to be to allow the cock some room to live in. There were many divots added to give some balance wheel end play, so it may be a refitted movement and the ill fitting case was very close but needed “finesse” to get it to run.

im going to go with that and say this mystery is solved!

thank you !! 

[Sjk4x4]

I wanted to share something else Ive found with this watch. Saying Ive not seen this before doesnt hold weight because Im new, but have you seen this before?

What materials materials were jewels made from? This one has an inclusion of some other natural material. Was this common?