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three letter code on balance cock

robdavidson
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JohnR725 Distinguished Member

JohnR725

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Posted
4 hours ago, robdavidson said:

so would it follow then that movements without a 3 letter code were probably not imported into the US by a manufacturer...

yes if you look at watches that were not imported into the US you will not see the codes

2 hours ago, dadistic said:

Best info I found was that the codes were required from approx. the mid '30's to the mid 60's

the time span of years that you have reminded me of something the missing piece to the story.

the years you have correspond to when tariffs existed to protect the American watch industry. To understand this am attaching a couple of PDFs the older one breaks things down with all sorts of interesting statistical data. So basically you have a tax on imported watches and every single enhancement improvements or anything increases the price. This was basically very good for the watch companies because it limits competition and very bad for the consumer because it makes watches expensive. Then in the 60s it was decided that this was no longer needed to protect what was left to the American watch industry and they were dropped.

ICP-Watches-Clocks-2012-Final.pdf pub169 Tariff Watch 196.pdf

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GuyMontag Super WRT Addict

GuyMontag

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Posted

If I remember correctly the reason the tariffs were first introduced in 1930 was because some watch companies were selling watches that claimed to have adjustments that were not in fact present and claiming more jewels than were present, for a price less than watches that did in fact have those adjustments and jewels. So consumers were being duped and getting less than what they paid for, which put the entire watch industry in a bad light.  The import duty made it non-financially viable to claim adjustments that were not in fact present.   So, in theory, the move was to protect the consumers trust in the watch industry, while also lining Uncle Sam's pocket with some sweet import duties. 

 

Google Books has a fascinating transcript of a 1955 congressional committee that was investigating how some watch companies were gaming the system to avoid paying the import duties, which the government claimed had cost them around $250 million b/w 1930 and 1955. Various heads of the American watch companies testified with some really interesting background on their company operations. JFK was one of those present during the testimony. If anyone is interested you can download a PDF here.

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