Waltham Pocket Watch

[digginstony]

Hi guys,

Just thought I would post this. I bought this pocket watch in the summer as a non - runner. It certainly had some issues. A broken mainspring and a wobbly balance. Gave the movement a bit of a clean. Fitted a new mainspring. The balance was ok! Turned out to be a damaged hole jewel in the balance cock. Replaced the jewel from a spare non runner. Assembled the movement and it ran like crap! Thanks to Marks excellent video on how to place a movement "In Beat" it runs sweet. Which I didn't have any understanding of before the video.

Have taken the movement apart and gave it an in depth clean and now is nice and shinny and ready for assembly once the other half stops finding me jobs to do around the house.

Amazing to think that when Fred received this watch for his fiftieth birthday, the Great War still had three years to run.

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[Geo]

Nice bit of work you have done, another piece of history restored!

[Folkvisor]

My grandfather had a similar Waltham.

Dave

[Folkvisor]

Sorry, I seem to have a penchant for upside down photos.

[Geo]

Sorry, I seem to have a penchant for upside down photos.

I have the same trouble at times when using my IPad, it's a proper nuisance. I've sorted it for you.

I love your grandfathers Pocket watch Dave!

[oldhippy]

Waltham p/w came in so many different cases and the same with the movements from a bog standard no jewel movements to high grade ones, like wise cases from bog standard to gold.  I used to have boxes of spares but now all gone to some lucky person who ended up buying this stuff when I retired.

[digginstony]

Dear Folk visor

Your Grandfather's watch is just a beautiful piece of American Watchmakers history. Looks in really well cared for condition

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[digginstony]

Also I have a 1894 pocket watch size 18 in a solid silver case by an English maker but when opening it up there's the legend "Waltham" it seems English makers bought movements from Waltham And had dials produced with there own name on. I wonder how widespread this practice may of been.

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[bobm12]

 

I wonder how widespread this practice may of been.

 

It still goes strong. Look at Invicta, they are essentially Seikos with a fancy case...and many Swiss makers using ETA and Ronda straight out of the factory. Swiss Army watches (Wenger, Victorinox, S.Military (?) ) come to mind...Ronda 515, 715 or ETA equivalent.

[digginstony]

Dear bobm12

This has to be a good thing. I have a fear of owning a watch with an "In House" movement when it comes to the cost of repair, if the stories I hear are true. Mainly that manufacturers won't sell spare parts and they have to go back to them. I fear this could be a licence to "Print Money"

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[Folkvisor]

Thank you all for your kind words regarding my grandfather's watch. According to the serial number it was made about 1868 so I think it may well have been my great grandfather's watch first and he would have bought it while still in Europe - what is now Biled, Romania but was then part of the Austria-Hungarain Empire. I wonder how many of these watches were sold in Europe. Anyway, for such an old watch it keeps very good time and I often use it. It has recently been cleaned and had it's rather worn mainspring replaced - probably the original.

 

I read somewhere that Vacheron Constantin bought the movements for their first Overseas watches from Jaeger-LeCoultre but I have no idea if that is true.

[Folkvisor]

I may be off a couple of decades on the date - it may be more like 1890. Sorry for the misinformation...

[digginstony]

Hi ya

If you open the back and look for the serial number on the movement, not the case, it should give you a fair idea when the watch was built. The serial numbers for 1890 should be around the 4,700,000. Hope you can read the picture. If not, type on a Google search "Waltham watch dates" and see what comes up.

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[Folkvisor]

12754445 is the serial number so it was built somewhere between 1903 and 04. That makes more sense.

 

It was the watch my grandfather used every day while he was section foreman for the CPR.

 

Thank you for the info.

 

Dave

[Folkvisor]

I find it interesting that the jewel chatons are held in place with blued screws. Roger Smith uses the same method in his watches.

[syfre]

Model 1890, production year 1903

 

https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/waltham/12754445

[Folkvisor]

Thank you for this link.

[digginstony]

Job done. I'm going to run it for a while outside the case just to see if any problems occur. That's the Beauty of the amateur. Doesn't worry me if the job takes minutes, hours or years

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[WillFly]

Waltham pocket watch movements were imported into the UK in large quantities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were quite often cased in Dennison cases - Dennison having moved its case manufactury from the US to the UK. So, you could choose the quality and size of your movement, from the most basic 5 or 7 jewel affair to a 21 or 23 jewel Railroad Grade movement, and then choose your casing - which might be nickel, silver, gold-filled or gold, depending on your pocket.

 

The thing that always strikes me about the US makers - Elgin, Waltham, Hamilton, etc. - is that they brought incredibly accurate and often very beautiful engineering techniques to mass produced products. Millions of watches turned out to superb standards - as good as anything produced today. My Elgin Father Time, for example.

[digginstony]

Many thanks for the info

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[ramrod]

on the pocket watch subject - about two years ago i bought (fleabay) a marriage watch from the ukraine. i was REALLY into the look of them and wanted one badly. for those of you who might not know what a marriage watch is, it is a pocket watch movement placed into a wristwatch case.

at any rate, i found one, bid on it and won. it arrived a few weeks later and i couldn't be happier. it has a couple of downfalls that i'm living with. the movement is not signed anywhere, but it is swiss and the seller said it was about 100 years old. it truly looks like it. 21 jewels with the two screws (chatons). it is just a beautiful piece and i enjoy looking at it - and listening to it.

fast forward, in the past month i downloaded the wildspectra watch timing app. on my tablet. i figured i'd check all of my watches. i have mostly seikos and they all fell into the +10 to  -10 minutes or thereabouts. this antique movement (after the app settled down) went immediately to  +0 to  -0 minutes on the graph. it held for about 7 or 8 minutes. i was gobstopped. it says a lot about the older technology. it seems that the makers way back when lived and died by their products - which says a lot considering the technology available back then to produce these fine pieces. i'm still amazed with this watch.

[Folkvisor]

Wow! That is accurate.