Box ‘o Balance Staffs

[FlameOfWrath]

I won this box as part of an auction of a watchmaker’s tools. I’m new to watches so I don’t know if this is normal. I have a strong desire to sort them. I am probably also slightly OCD.

What does this mean?

First picture is the box. It is about 4” x 6” x 1”

Second picture is a close up of the surface.

Third photo is a random draw from the box.
 

 

 

[rehajm]

It looks like those are all broken which would mean there was a watchmaker that was a hoarder

It is most definitely not normal…

Edited September 15, 2023 by rehajm

[FlameOfWrath]

17 minutes ago, rehajm said:

It looks like those are all broken which would mean there was a watchmaker that was a hoarder

It is most definitely not normal…

I've found my people!

[RichardHarris123]

I was about to say the same, looks like they are broken and if so worthless. 

[FlameOfWrath]

There are a lot in there. Some of them seem to have pivots on both ends.

[RichardHarris123]

Balance staff's can be repivoted but it may not be worth it, if not recyle them. 

[rehajm]

1 hour ago, FlameOfWrath said:

l. I have a strong desire to sort them

I think someone already did. You have the ‘broken’ box…hopefully ‘good’ was a much larger box…

…and welcome. You are amongst friends…

[Nucejoe]

You have mega tons of ( data in the box ) when you get to making staffs.

Good ones worth more than what you paid for the whole deal. 

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

7 hours ago, FlameOfWrath said:

I won this box as part of an auction of a watchmaker’s tools. I’m new to watches so I don’t know if this is normal. I have a strong desire to sort them. I am probably also slightly OCD.

What does this mean?

First picture is the box. It is about 4” x 6” x 1”

Second picture is a close up of the surface.

Third photo is a random draw from the box.
 

 

 

Oh wow, the first box is my ocd dream ❤  i will buy them from you .  No i dont think they are broken. The second picture of the half a dozen look like blanks ready to be turned. If you have Nos brand and caliber staffs in there good luck identifying them . The best known site for doing that has just shut down for some reason 

[JohnR725]

5 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

worthless.

This is watch repair and I'm having problems with the word worthless not sure why?

I was thinking about it we need more information

5 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Balance staff's can be repivoted but it may not be worth it, if not recyle them.

 

Typically for re-pivot in the balance staff would still be attached to the balance wheel. Typically when balance staff is removed its damaged and cannot be reused.  

5 hours ago, FlameOfWrath said:

There are a lot in there. Some of them seem to have pivots on both ends.

I think we need a better assessment of what you have.

It's an interesting assortment you have no matter what. For instance that image on the left not your usual staff friction staff but frictions in what? To give you an example what friction staff looks like there's one on the right with its pivots and that's for Hamilton 992B. But the war on the left is interesting especially the way the pivots are or are not? It's possible that those are the pivots maybe this goes in something with almost 0 J better assessments needed.

35 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Oh wow, the first box is my ocd dream ❤  i will buy them from you .  No i dont think they are broken. The second picture of the half a dozen look like blanks ready to be turned. If you have Nos brand and caliber staffs in there good luck identifying them . The best known site for doing that has just shut down for some reason 

Yes it's interesting isn't it. Then a lot of them do look like blanks waiting to be finished. As far as identifying that's not really an issue because there are books and other stuff that identify things by size there even listed by size.

 

Now worthless? There's a lot of them you could probably repackage and sell them on eBay is miscellaneous unknown balance staffs. But what else could be used for? These are variety of skill sets needed when working with balance staffs. Like when you're turning balance staffs need to learn how to turn pivots well have a whole bunch of balance staffs of the pivots turned. The staff serve the right hardness now you can turn your pivots especially if you're using carbide gravers. Or if you'd like to practice re-pivoting which is rather specialized you have things to practice with. Or another thing that occasionally comes up his modification of a staff and there is a lot of staffs you to modify. Or you just have fun sorting through them and pondering what you have. not necessarily worthless just creative challenges required to make use of them other than to impress people and make other people jealous that you have more than we do.

[RichardHarris123]

Fair point, worthless was a poor choice of words.

[Neverenoughwatches]

16 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Fair point, worthless was a poor choice of words.

If you want to see worthless Rich , I'll send you a picture of a balance staff next time i try to repivot one

[JohnR725]

8 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Fair point, worthless was a poor choice of words.

Not necessarily.

Too many variables really. Plus it depends upon how much money was spent versus buying something else.

For instance if you don't have a watchmaker's lathe then Then they become less valuable.

We really need a better assessments in the meantime it has value for entertainment purposes as to us pondering why it exists at all and I would say that has to be the most balance staffs I've ever seen in one place.

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

26 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

As far as identifying that's not really an issue because there are books and other stuff that identify things by size there even listed by size.

 

And would you believe it John, i have those books . Ronda,  dcn and Renata catalogs, very useful but dont often come up for sale and when they do the sellers want good money for them. The information is invaluable. No i meant the balance staff and stem..com site identified them very quickly. Generally i could do around 25 an hour just by tapping a few keys on my keyboard , going through the books i am finding much more time consuming.

2 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

would say that has to be the most balance staffs I've ever seen in one place

You have seen nothing until you come to my house John, i shall be  henceforth known as the king collector of balance staff and watch stems.

[JohnR725]

Just now, Neverenoughwatches said:

i have those books

You don't have all of the books none of us probably have all the books. There's one on American pocket watches and it's listed by size which is nice. I believe best fit has a section of staff and stem sizes and I do think they also a section where there are listed in incremental sizes increasing.

Then yes the website. The problem with the modern world easy access but also here today gone tomorrow in the wink of an eye. Which is unfortunate because yes that was a really useful websites.

Probably what would need to be done for the assessment would be the group the staffs in some sort of grouping as soon as we figure out what kind of grouping were looking at. I was thinking they look Swiss but a few of them look like they could be American vintage pocket watch that makes things more challenging if this is a ship probably is is a mixed assortment or several assortments somebody purchased I doubt it would be from one factory though that's a lot of staffs not the quantity but a lot of different types unlikely one factory.

[Neverenoughwatches]

37 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

Or you just have fun sorting through them and pondering what you have

This is absolutely true John, i have never had so much fun sorting through balance staffs and watch stems ( yes very sad i know but we all have our strange ways  ) i think of it like treasure hunting,   ohhh a Longines, ohh wow an Omega , yey an Elgin, woohoo a Blancpain !!

[JohnR725]

5 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

treasure hunting

Yes the treasure hunt all the interesting things that can sometimes be found in miscellaneous stuff. This is why for those lucky enough to have Watch and/or clock shows where they sell stuff or car boot sales or whatever. Always important to go through all the boxes look at everything a lot of times interesting stuff could be basically found in the miscellaneous nobody cares category you just have to take the time to look and be lucky.

 

[FlameOfWrath]

The auction had three lathes in it but only one motor. I think there was a Jacot as well. It would be cool if there was a device like CoinStar you could dump them all into and have them sorted.

[JohnR725]

5 minutes ago, FlameOfWrath said:

It would be cool if there was a device like CoinStar you could dump them all into and have them sorted.

There probably is possibly but you wouldn't build will afford it. It's amazing what they can do with cameras now. I've seen examples of optical measuring devices where they literally just dump something on the bed push the button it looks at it figures out all the orientations and measures them to an extreme high tolerance. In other words they don't even have to range of an in a precise order. Or in another example in a watch factory they were taking the parts out of the CNC machine placing him in the optical whatever and it was verifying they were within specifications and if they were not because of I'm guessing as the cutters are wearing a little bit they would send new instructions the machine so that they would be made the exact size

so basically something like that could easily do a valuation of staffs except you have to program at all in that could be that expensive aspect.

The thing to do is just take out a small quantity and just look at them and start just putting them into piles it looks similar without worrying about exact stuff. It's kind is something we do any way and watch repair when you take a watch of the cleaning machine and everything gets mixed up you have to put or at least I do I arrange all my screws so I put all the screws are better the same together makes it a lot easier to assemble of things are grouped so grouping things in balance staffs isn't really that hard you just have to look at them and look at general shapes and not necessarily worry about size and do a preliminary evaluation as to how bad it's going to really be or not I'm curious as to how many actually have pivots or the ones that are missing pivots do they look like they have been riveted onto a watch balance wheel. Because conceivably these are all because the quantity of parts from out of the factory or may be several factories because it's definitely a sizable quantity.

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

10 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

There probably is possibly but you wouldn't build will afford it. It's amazing what they can do with cameras now. I've seen examples of optical measuring devices where they literally just dump something on the bed push the button it looks at it figures out all the orientations and measures them to an extreme high tolerance. In other words they don't even have to range of an in a precise order. Or in another example in a watch factory they were taking the parts out of the CNC machine placing him in the optical whatever and it was verifying they were within specifications and if they were not because of I'm guessing as the cutters are wearing a little bit they would send new instructions the machine so that they would be made the exact size

so basically something like that could easily do a valuation of staffs except you have to program at all in that could be that expensive aspect.

The thing to do is just take out a small quantity and just look at them and start just putting them into piles it looks similar without worrying about exact stuff. It's kind is something we do any way and watch repair when you take a watch of the cleaning machine and everything gets mixed up you have to put or at least I do I arrange all my screws so I put all the screws are better the same together makes it a lot easier to assemble of things are grouped so grouping things in balance staffs isn't really that hard you just have to look at them and look at general shapes and not necessarily worry about size and do a preliminary evaluation as to how bad it's going to really be or not I'm curious as to how many actually have pivots or the ones that are missing pivots do they look like they have been riveted onto a watch balance wheel. Because conceivably these are all because the quantity of parts from out of the factory or may be several factories because it's definitely a sizable quantity.

 

Once you get into sizing them its not that difficult, but you do need a good bench micrometer or something that can measure them accurately. Generally when sizing up i might be a maximum of 2 100th of a mm out in maybe one dimension only. This often was either from the staff itself or from the information source. Some different manufacturers and calibers can be very close. There are 5 dimensions sometimes 4 that are required to match up.  The ronda catalog i have from the mid 70s lists around 6000 staffs, so there is some work involved in narrowing things down. I'm sure there are many more unlisted. 

[JohnR725]

16 minutes ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

so there is some work involved in narrowing things down. I'm sure there are many more unlisted. 

I think it be more fun not to worry about the details. In other words just categorize by shape and visual observation of size don't worry about the dimensions yet. Then any that have complete pivots on both ends separate them out.

Then reference books I believe that's a Swiss book doesn't list American pocket watch staffs for instance? Then if you added an assortment from a factory making pin lever watches for instance conceivably there would be staffs that nobody makes replacements for this is what happens we get stuff left over from factory production.

[FlameOfWrath]

19 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

Oh wow, the first box is my ocd dream ❤  i will buy them from you .  No i dont think they are broken. The second picture of the half a dozen look like blanks ready to be turned. If you have Nos brand and caliber staffs in there good luck identifying them . The best known site for doing that has just shut down for some reason 

Just let me sort them first. I have to do that.