Enicar 120 Jump Hour Movement help

[JulianK]

Hi all,

so I have an amazing little jump hour watch from the 1930s equipped with a Enicar 120 15J movement 8.75 linges.

its been messed around with too many times over the last 90 years and unfortunately has a lot of problems. At this point, to even have a hope of running I would need a donor movement or a ton of parts. 
 

I was trying to find the non-jump hour version of this caliber but I have literally not found a single other watch with the same 120 movement available. Here is the link to the movement in question. Any advice or knowledge here about this caliber would be amazing. Maybe there is a similar one that shares some parts? Maybe search terms I’m not using?

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&2&2uswk&Enicar_120

appreciate the help in advance! You guys are the best.

 

J

[JulianK]

After all, photos never hurt the process! I’ve opened up the watch to take photos of the “dial” side and movement side.

I’ve pictured the only marking I could find that wasn’t just generic. Hopefully this helps.

thanks again!

[WatchMaker]

Hi @JulianK

I can see that no-one has answered your query yet; let's see if I can at least help with some observations.

Firstly you've stated this is an Enicar 120; even including the Ranfft link. I just wonder how you've arrived at this conclusion? I can't see how the keyless works on your movement looks anything like the 120 used in the Ranfft example. If anything this is closer to an Enicar 4. Let me try and illustrate:

If we're in agreement it is an Enicar (because of the A-R marking in a pentagon) it might be worth doing a google image search around "Enicar" to see if you can pinpoint yours.

[JulianK]

6 hours ago, WatchMaker said:

Hi @JulianK

I can see that no-one has answered your query yet; let's see if I can at least help with some observations.

Firstly you've stated this is an Enicar 120; even including the Ranfft link. I just wonder how you've arrived at this conclusion? I can't see how the keyless works on your movement looks anything like the 120 used in the Ranfft example. If anything this is closer to an Enicar 4. Let me try and illustrate:

If we're in agreement it is an Enicar (because of the A-R marking in a pentagon) it might be worth doing a google image search around "Enicar" to see if you can pinpoint yours.

Hi,

Firstly I just want to say thank you for your response and putting in some research on my behalf.

originally I suspected the Enicar 120 but I was paying more attention to the movement bridges. You are certainly right that the Enicar 4 is a more likely match, although I still note some inconsistencies with that as well on the movement side. 
 

I’ll keep looking around but so far even searching for the Enicar 4 doesn’t yield a lot of information.

 

thanks again!

[WatchMaker]

Hi again @JulianK. No problem. I know how frustrating it can be trying to track down elusive parts.

A number of other things to mention:

19 hours ago, JulianK said:

I was paying more attention to the movement bridges

This might seem the obvious route to take but many movements have bridge redesigns whilst keyless works remain the same; that is why the latter is usually the more reliable reference point. Whilst ranfft.de normally has single pic options for movement side and dial side, there are various movements with multiple movement side pics (different bridge layouts) but the keyless works remains constant. Here's just one such as an example: http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/cbidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&a167&2uswk&Revue_51_sav

You may already know but the useful Bestfit reference has keyless works shadow diagrams to help try and identify movements. This is what originally steered me towards the 'Enicar 4' as I'm sure you'll agree that if we look at these diagrams then compared to your movement's keyless works the '4' comes out the closest:

However this is also a good juncture to stop and sanity check your movement size. If it is indeed a 10.5 ligne movement that would make it around 24mm in diameter. Does that pan out? [Note the 120 is only a 8.75 ligne movement making it a sub 20mm movement and whilst it is difficult to judge the scale of your watch from the pics I'm betting it's not that small given the movement itself is around the width of the watch].

The Bestfit catalogue also tell me that the Enicar 4 is based on the Enicar 9 (note this is the 10.5 ligne Enicar 9; rather confusingly Enicar also did a 6.75x11 ligne '9' movement] if that helps further.

Finding information on old Enicars is not easy I grant you. Note the pic used for the Enicar 4 in my comparison composite earlier was actually taken from a 'for sale' item on ebay. I strongly suggest you look at this (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373198334606). Note the pivot point at the 12 o'clock position ... rather coincidentally where your hour disc would go?

Lastly ... but maybe it should have been firstly ... is what you think is actually wrong with your movement. It seems you're trying to track down a complete donor movement which may not be necessary if there is a specific part you're after.

[JulianK]

You are definitely right. Identifying the movement by the keyless works is a much more solid approach. I think the logic you are using is definitely sound. Sure enough from my calipers, the mystery movement is EXACTLY 23.5mm. I think you could say mystery solved, I went ahead and purchased the movement you linked as I also stumbled upon it.

The reason I was looking for a donor movement initially was because the balance on mine is beyond repair, even when the staff was replaced properly and the hairspring was straightened to the best of my ability.

Thanks again for all your help! I will follow-up with the story once the movement comes in. It seems the balance is good in the donor so that is promising.