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Waltham wristwatch - year of manufacture?


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My Waltham wristwatch has a 750-B movement (4 Adj's, 17 Jewels) with a serial number L70617.  I would like to know the year of manufacture but none of the Waltham lookups yield a reasonable result (usually "No result found").  Even if I convert the L to the Roman numeral 50 (a wild guess) it still gives me a manufacture year in the 1800s, which is ridiculous.  Can anyone help me with the year I'm looking for, and the source?  Thanks!

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7 hours ago, Loren said:

L to the Roman numeral 50

if this was a Bulova then L I believe is 50 but they also use letter codes after that they were using Roman numbers and the 50 was 1950.

5 hours ago, mikepilk said:

Did Waltham make wristwatch movements, or did they just use Swiss movements?

did you ever notice for pocket watch can look like a wristwatch especially if it's tiny? Yes they did make wristwatches and at some point in time they also or? At some point in time a lot of not just American but a lot of companies become a name only on a Swiss movement so I don't consider them in discussions like this

when you're looking it up her trying to find parts there's reference books like for instance E & J Swigart Company published a really nice book reprinted by a material house and no longer exists available as a PDF and variety of sources and published about 1952. interestingly enough somebody was asking about hairsprings I believe for this watch just the other day so I swiped an image out of the book so this tells us is the book was published and 52 and the watch was in the book it existed before 52.

One of the problems for watch identification is the usually use material guides which are actually very poor for watch identification and lead the lots of mistakes. Fortunately most people won't care or notice the mistakes. But that does mean you have to have a parts book that covers the time span that you're looking for which is why a lot of watches when you look them up you won't find them at all because the parts books are early.

so doing a quick search in my computer I really prefer PDFs over physical at least for the computer search looks like Waltham had a material guide in 1954. They also a separate book listing the serial numbers you have to go all the way to the back supplemental pages to get for instance the one that's attached you'll notice the letter L is not in reference to any date or time.

so it looks like the unhelpful answer is later than the 40s and before 1952 so we narrowed it down to a 10 year span roughly. I think that's the best you going to do

and yes people like to see pictures because we don't actually know what every single watch looks like and it's a watch repair discussion group at least I for one love pictures of movements

went looking for a picture of the movement found a picture and may be a better description of the serial numbers

https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/waltham-750b-needs-tlc-s-n-p28843.81366/

 

 

 

 

Waltham 750B.jpg

Waltham supplemental identification L.jpg

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I too have a PDF of Swigart - I should have looked before answering !

The only Waltham wristwatches I've come across have used Swiss movements.  I have a small collection of 16S Waltham pocket watches - beautifully made and great quality. I think I'll try to get a wristwatch with a Waltham movement. 

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Thank you for the prompt and detailed replies.  I really appreciate it.  I sure wish I could get closer to the year of manufacture than a ten-year span.  I am a frequent reader but rare poster, so I neglected to insert a photo, and now it seems I do not have privileges to insert a photo anyway.  Hmmm?

Concerning Swiss movements in American watches, I think I remember reading that Swiss companies purchased production methods and machinery from Elgin and Waltham in the early 20th century, propelling the Swiss from basically a hand-made cottage industry to a watchmaking industrial powerhouse using American manufacturing methods.  I would be very surprised to learn that Waltham ever put a Swiss movement under their name.

 

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As you say, the American companies were the first to mechanise watch production, and were ahead of the Swiss, and the UK. Lancashire was one of the biggest producers of watch parts, but like the Swiss, hand finished. The late 19th Century USA watches were so good, there are Swiss "copies" - though I've never seen one.

From Wiki "Production of the complicated inner watch movements was moved out of the United States. Waltham opened a new factory in Neuchatel, Switzerland in the summer of 1962 designed to produce up to 100,000 watch movements per month."   

Waltham was sold to a Swiss company in 1968, who owned other movement makers. Also in BestFit, the Waltham watch movements listed seem to be based on Swiss movements by AS, ETA, Unitas, Font. I suspect that from the 70s, most would have a Swiss made movement. I have a 70s watch with an ET/NFT movement.

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7 hours ago, mikepilk said:

Waltham was sold to a Swiss company in 1968

I suspect it was just the wristwatch division that was sold as the clock division survived. I was looking up something I found the wall from clock division merging with another company within the last five years. So part of the company survived but other parts got liquidated.

8 hours ago, Loren said:

Concerning Swiss movements in American watches, I think I remember reading that Swiss companies purchased production methods and machinery from Elgin and Waltham in the early 20th century, propelling the Swiss from basically a hand-made cottage industry to a watchmaking industrial powerhouse using American manufacturing methods.  I would be very surprised to learn that Waltham ever put a Swiss movement under their name.

somewhere out there I've seen a book that had a story and a report of somebody came to America or maybe they were hired already in America but they analyzed all the American watch industry and reported back to probably the Swiss. I don't know how much machinery they were buying from us. I do know that during World War II when we desperately needed machinery because were running our watch industry into the ground the Swiss conveniently were nowhere to be found. Because they knew the destiny of American watch industry run itself into the ground not sell any of your nifty equipment and in the Swiss don't have to compete with us anymore which was a nice plan.

I know way more about Elgin that I do Waltham. It's conceivable for Waltham that towards the end to compete they would import Swiss movements will still be marked Waltham possibly even made at Waltham I don't actually know. I know that Elgin slowly started importing more Swiss watches. They also had a factory in Switzerland making watches. To get around the tariffs that protected the American watch industry they would import their watches they think they got a special deal maybe it was the version of islands where it's US sort of and it didn't have the tariffs like import the movements in they had a factory that case up the watches in and send them to the US. Not sure how technically that all worked out but it was cheaper than importing the movements in the US where they get taxed with the tariff rates

is why a lot of times when you look at older watches Ilsley unadjusted because if there adjusted that bumps up the tariff price. The number jewels bumped up the price was a whole bunch of stuff that we just make Swiss watches too expensive in the US.

I do have a image this is from an internal factory Elgin listing of all their movements and notice the year and just a few Swiss movements at that time they were mainly all their production. As they reached the point where they couldn't compete they phased out everything except the movements or watches they could make cheaper here so obviously they were more and more Swiss watches.

The actual downfall of Elgin is quite interesting Wikipedia does not get it right. Elgin was busy diversifying and other divisions and stuff they use need a little more time to pull it all but a power struggle for control the company and basically greedy people took over control the company and ran it into the ground.

so it's hard to say with Waltham I have seen Waltham watches marked Waltham but very clearly were Swiss but whether or not the rack she made in a factory in the US I don't know I'm guessing during a transition period before they were sold they probably were and then everything afterwords like Elgin and everything else is just a name. Mike Hamilton gets bought I Omega which is now part of Swatch group which is why we still of Hamilton watches but just the name.

 

 

 

Elgin Swiss import list 1956.JPG

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