Movement Identification

Copyright © David Boettcher 2005 - 2023 all rights reserved.

For some companies there are more of their movements shown on the pages dedicated to them, these are: Longines, IWC, Stauffer, Son & Co., Aegler (who made watches for Rolex and Gruen amongst others).

The page doesn't show movements with maker's names on them, it identifies some otherwise unidentified movements found in the type of watches that I collect, which are principally World War One era men's wristwatches with 12 to 13 ligne movements. There are no modern (post-WW2) watches, electrical, battery or quartz watches.

The first step in identifying a movement is to determine its size. If you don't know the size of a movement, you haven't even begun the identification process.

There are thousands of different movements, many of which look very similar. Unfortunately, if I don't recognise one I don't have the time to plough through catalogues trying to identify it unless it is something unusual or interesting. If I was tempted to have a look for a movement, without knowing its size I wouldn't even make a start.

There might be a manufacturer's trademark concealed on the bottom plate under the dial, or even under one of the cocks or bridges mounted on the bottom plate as in this Mystery Movement. If you have the movement serviced, cleaned and oiled, which all mechanical movements need every few years, ask for both sides of the bottom plate to be photographed.

If you click on the pictures a bigger one should pop up in a new window. I don't mind you using these for your own personal research, but if you want to use them elsewhere such as on an internet forum, a web site, or in a publication, please read my copyright notice first and include attribution, or at least say where you got it from.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to get in touch via my Contact Me page.

Identifying Movements

It is often difficult to identify movements from the shape of the top plates or bridges alone. Although some movements are well recognised, others are less easy. This is partly because of similarities between the products of different manufactures, but is exacerbated by mass producers altering the shapes of bridges and cocks for different customers.

The apparently huge variety of Swiss watches is explained by this phenomenon: once the basic layout in a round movement of the barrel, train wheels, escapement and balance was arrived at, there was little scope, let alone need, to change it. Manufacturers altered the appearance of their movements by changing the top plates, the cocks and bridges but the basic layout remained much the same. So long as all the pivot holes and screw holes are in the same places, the actual shape of the cocks and bridges is irrelevant.

Note that any decoration applied to the upper plate, cocks and bridges, such as perlage, damascening or gold plating, is irrelevant. It is only the physical shapes of the parts that are important.

The shape of the cocks and bridges is more of an aesthetic consideration; so long as all the pivot holes and screw holes are in exactly the same places, then cocks and bridges of very different shapes can be freely interchanged. Some manufacturers produced many different movements with the same basic layout and identical train and keyless mechanism components, but with different patterns of cocks and bridges. Fabrique Horlogerie Fontainemelon (FHF) was a large manufacturer of Swiss ébauches who did this a lot.

To see a clear example of this look at the section below about Eterna movements customised for Stauffer & Co. Compare the bridge shapes shown in Jobin for the Eterna movements and those seen on Stauffer branded Eterna movements. The movements are definitively identified as Eterna by their keyless mechanism, but their top plates are different from those shown in Jobin.

The pictures on this page can help to identify some anonymous movements without seeing the keyless mechanism, but be careful to make sure that all the features, the shapes of the plates and bridges, the placement of the screws and pivots, are exactly the same; similar is not close enough!

Catalogues

The documenting of Swiss movements for the purpose of identification and sourcing of spare parts began in the 1930s. Unfortunately, anonymous Swiss ébauches (movements) made before the 1930s are not at all well documented, which is the reason for this page.

One useful reference is Jobin's three-volume “La classification horlogère des calibres de montres et des fournitures d'horlogerie Suisse” which covers Swiss watch movements of the 1930s and 1940s. Some large American parts suppliers such as Bestfit, Schwartchild and Paulson produced catalogues for the purpose of identifying Swiss movements so that spare parts could be ordered. These were (and are) used by British watch repairers. The earliest of these date to the 1940s.

The American catalogues generally only include movements made in the 1930s and later, and require both the movement size and the shape of the keyless mechanism parts, in particular the keyless mechanism cover plate. It is often said that the definitive “fingerprint” of a movement is the keyless mechanism, which is why catalogues frequently show only the components of the keyless mechanism for movement identification. To see the keyless mechanism requires that the dial is removed.

Even if you have access to see the keyless mechanism, many older movements from before the 1930s are not documented in the catalogues. As a quick rule of thumb, if the keyless mechanism cover plate does not include the setting lever detent spring, explained at Cover Plates with Springs, it is unlikely that the movement will be listed.

Although American watch manufacturers supplied spare parts right from the start of their production, this was not the case for Swiss suppliers. The reason for this is that American manufacturers began with the intention of mass producing interchangeable parts by automatic machinery, which could make thousands of virtually identical components, many of which were not needed to fill orders but were held in stock as spares. The Swiss watch industry was later in its adoption of automatic machinery, meaning that the organised supply of spare parts by Swiss manufacturers began much later than in America.

If you know of a source or catalogue that can be used to identify earlier movements, please let me know.

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Serial Numbers

Watches usually have a serial number, a long string of digits on the movement or in the case back. If the number is on the movement, it might be on the bottom plate and not visible without removing the movement from the case.

Usually, the serial number on the movement was placed there by the maker of the movement. If the movement was cased by the same manufacturer, then the serial number on the case may be the same as that on the movement. However, watches were often assembled by an établisseur using parts (ébauche, dial, hands, case etc.) bought from separate specialist manufacturers and the number in the case bears no relationship to that on the movement.

It must be noted that serial numbers don't intrinsically contain any information; you cannot identify the manufacturer of a watch from a serial number. A serial number is only useful if you know who applied it and if their records still exist, which in most cases they do not.

To find out more about serial numbers and other numbers found on watches, including hand made/scratched marks, click on this link Numbers on Movements and Cases.

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Movement Types

Movements are broadly classified into types based on the arrangement of their top plates, bridges and cocks.

A watch movement usually consists of a plate called the bottom or pillar plate on which the various parts are mounted.

A pillar plate movement is an older type, dating from the time when an upper plate was separated from the bottom plate by pillars, leaving a gap between the two plates for the mainspring barrel, fusee, train wheels and escapement.

Later movements were made slimmer by eliminating the pillars and fixing the upper and lower plates directly together, which improved the rigidity of the movement and the accuracy by which the plates were aligned. Recesses were machined into the top and bottom plates to accommodate the train wheels and other parts.

• A full plate movement has a full round top plate that covers the mainspring barrel, fusee and all of the train wheels and escapement. The balance and balance spring are mounted above the top plate. A cock mounted on the top plate carries the upper bearing for the balance staff.
• A three quarter plate movement has part of the plate cut away to allow the balance to be mounted on the bottom plate with a cock mounted on the bottom plate locating the top pivot of the balance staff. The plate carries the bearings for the pivots of the mainspring barrel, fusee (if there is one), second, third and fourth wheels.
• A half plate movement has more of the top plate cut away than a three quarter plate movement and carries the bearings for the pivots of the mainspring barrel, fusee (if there is one), second and third wheels. The top bearing for the fourth wheel is carried in a separate cock.

A Lépine or bar movement has the top plate further divided into separate bridges or cocks.

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Cover Plates with Springs

The keyless work that enables stem winding and setting is often said to be the “fingerprint” of a movement, and many catalogues of Swiss movements illustrate parts of the keyless work as the sole method of identifying movements. The keyless work is contained within the movement and only visible when the dial is removed, which makes identification of a movement in its case with the dial present impossible by this method.

There is also another factor to bear in mind about this method of identifying movements. In the nineteenth century, Swiss watch manufacturers didn't generally make spare parts available in an organised way. If a part was worn out or broken, then a watch repairers was usually expected to be able to make a replacement part. It seems to have been only around the 1940s that Swiss watch manufacturers started to make available spare parts and catalogues of parts like Flume, Bestfit, Swartchild etc. with illustrations of keyless work were published. This is shown by the dates of publication of the catalogues, but also by the fact that they usually illustrate the keyless work with an plate that forms the setting lever spring and has notches that act as the detent for the setting lever.

Movements from the 1920s or earlier, with plates that don't have integrated detent springs, don't generally appear in the Bestfit or similar books and are therefore harder to identify. The keyless parts are often just as unique, it's just that by the time the Bestfit books were introduced, watches with such movements were considered “obsolete”. I began this page to provide identification of some movements like this.

For example, The Bestfit Book includes the diagram shown here in black and white of the parts of the keyless work of ETA calibre 715 and Eterna 710. The most significant part for identification is the largest part, which acts as a cover plate for the keyless work and has an integrated detent spring and notch that holds the mechanism in either the winding or setting position. This cover is called the “setting lever spring” in Swiss parts lists, with the generic part No. 445, or “set bridge” in American parlance. The other two parts shown are the setting lever, and the yoke which moves the sliding pinion. These are smaller, simpler, and less easy to identify with certainty.

Cover Plates Without Springs

Plates with an integrated setting lever spring and detent notches were an evolution in the 1920s of earlier, simpler, cover plates which simply kept all of the parts of the keyless work in place.

Stem set keyless work needs to have have a detent mechanism that holds the crown in either the winding or setting position. In early stem wound and set watches, the usual Swiss “positive” set keyless work (in contrast to American or negative set) incorporates this detent as part of the keyless work itself, usually a notch on the yoke, whereas in later watches it is integrated into the cover plate.

The image of the keyless work of a Marvin wristwatch illustrates the earlier type of mechanism with the detent separate from the cover plate. The cover plate is the sinuous yellow plate screwed to the bottom plate in two places. It is a rigid plate that doesn't move or flex when the keyless work is operated.

The setting lever is the right angled steel piece which engages with a groove on the stem just above the winding pinion. The yoke is the steel lever that engages with a groove on the sliding pinion; it is normally held in the winding position by the setting lever spring beneath the cover plate. When the crown and stem are pulled out, the heel on the lower end of the setting lever moves the yoke, which in turn moves the sliding pinion. A notch on the yoke acts as a detent which holds it and the sliding pinion in the hand setting position. Pressing the crown and stem back in makes the heel on the setting lever jump out of the detent and the setting lever spring returns the yoke to the winding position. If you mouse over the image you should see the mechanism move. On a tablet or phone you might need to click on it and then page back to reset it.

It is not known exactly when this modification to the cover plate was introduced, but it seems to have been in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and Eterna might have been the manufacturer who introduced it. If you have any knowledge about this, please let me know. Once this system had been introduced it was quickly taken up by other manufacturers.

By the time the Bestfit and other similar movement identification books were introduced, which seems to have begun in the 1940s, most of the watches current at that time had cover plates with integral detents. The fingerprints in the Bestfit book can be used to fairly easily identify these movements.

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Measuring Movements

There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of different Swiss movements. To randomly start looking through references for a movement would be hopeless; the first step in identifying a movement is to determine its size.

The image here from the "Official Catalogue of Swiss Watch Repair Parts" issued by the Watchmakers of Switzerland in 1948 shows how movements are measured for diameter D, which is the dimension that matters. NB: This is a measurement of the movement itself, not the case or any ring or anything else that might be around the movement.

Note that the diameter D is taken from the part of the movement immediately below the widest part of the bottom plate. This is an important dimension because it determines the size of the hole in the case or carrier ring that the movement is to be inserted into.

The widest part of the movement above D forms a flange that stops the movement dropping straight though the case or carrier ring. The flange must be there, but its diameter is irrelevant. It is often the same size as the dial.

If the movement is not round but is rectangular, or barrel (tonneau) shaped like the one in the image, then the measurements needed are the breadth D and length L as shown in the image.

Swiss and French Watch Sizes

Swiss and French watch movement sizes are usually given in lignes (pronounced ‘line’).

A ligne is a “douzième” or 1/12 of an old French inch, which itself is 1.0657 of an English inch. So a ligne is about 2·256mm. In the context of watches the measurement douzième usually means a twelfth part of a ligne, also sometimes called a point. This can be measured with a douzième gauge.

The lignes dimension is written in short as three prime symbols ''' in a similar way to the double prime sign '' for an inch. For example 13''' means thirteen lignes, a common size for a man's wristwatch movement.

Lignes	Millimetres
10½	23·7
11	24·8
11½	25·9
12	27·1
12½	28·2
13	29·3

The standardized conversion for a ligne is 2.2558291 mm (1 mm = 0.443296 ligne), which is more easily remembered as 2·256 mm.

Watches were made in sizes from 2½ lignes, a very small ladies' baguette movement, to 20 lignes or more for pocket watches. The ligne size is often not an exact measurement, it is more of a general classification of size, so don't expect a 13''' movement to measure exactly 29·3mm.

Note that the measurement of diameter must be made just below the flange on the bottom plate that holds the movement in the case.

Swiss made men's trench wristwatches from World War One often have a 13 ligne movement, such as a Longines 13.34, and a case size of about 35mm diameter excluding the lugs and crown. This is a nice size even today when the fashion is for larger watches. The case is about 5½ mm larger than the movement.

References such as the Bestfit Catalogue list movements grouped into half lignes, or occasionally quarter lignes. The calculator below returns the ligne size to half a ligne, e.g. 12½ or 13 ligne. The quarter ligne sizes are usually very few for men's size watches and are tacked on to the end of the half ligne sections, for a small watch movement you might need the quarter size.

Movement diameter (mm):  

English and American Watch Sizes

There is a guide to the sizes of English and American movements at English and American Watch Sizes.

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Photographing Movements

It is a convention that watch movements are photographed with the pendant or winding stem at the top of the image. This is the way movements are pictured in all the reference books, so using the same orientation makes identification much easier.

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Aegler Rebberg Movements

Aegler supplied Rebberg movements to Wilsdorf & Davis, and also to a lot of other companies. In fact it is most likely that Aegler supplied complete, cased, watches. Companies in London that Aegler supplied, such as the fledgling Wilsdorf & Davis, were simple importation business operations with an office in London but no factory capability, either in Switzerland or in England to put movements into cases and test the finished watches. All the silver cases that are seen with Rebberg movements, and gold cases until 1915, were made in Switzerland, so it is clear that the movements would have been cased and the finished watches tested at the Aegler factory.

Aegler manufactured movements in its ébauche factory in the Rebberg district of Bienne, and as a consequence of this Rebberg was a registered as a trade mark by Aegler, hence these movements are often referred to as Rebberg movements, even if they are not stamped with the Rebberg name. If they are stamped Rebberg it is often on the bottom plate and under the dial so not normally visible.

The image of the Rebberg Watch Co. movement is courtesy of eBay member allthatsparkles69. The image of the Rolex 13 ligne savonnette movement is of my grandfather's wristwatch movement. All the other movements here are by kind permission of Owen Gilchrist.

The movements are all photographed with point where the stem enters the movement at the top, at 12 o'clock. This is the way that movements are shown in reference books, so it makes it a lot easier to look up a particular calibre if the photograph is presented in the same orientation. All the movements are Lépine layout with the exception of the one savonnette. The very distinctive shape of the centre bridge identifies them all as Aegler Rebberg movements.

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Unusual Rebberg Movement

The larger image shows an unusual Aegler Rebberg savonnette movement marked Rolex on the ratchet wheel. This movement was used in small numbers of Rolex watches, including Oysters, in the late 1920s. The most obvious difference from the earlier Rebberg movements is the sweeping curved centre bridge, but the setting lever screw is also in a different position indicating that the keyless mechanism is different from the standard Rebberg model. This movement was only used for a few years until it was replaced by a slightly different Aegler design known as the “10½ ligne Hunter”.

This movement was also supplied to Gruen in the USA. It is listed as a Gruen 825 with small seconds, 826 Lépine and 827 savonnette. The 826 and 827 came in centre seconds versions. The black and white image here shows a Gruen 826 Lépine movement with indirect centre seconds. The cover plate for the keyless mechanism includes the detent spring which holds the stem in the winding or setting position. Earlier keyless mechanisms, such as those in the earlier Rebberg movements, had the detent made from separate levers and springs, so making the detent part of the cover plate made it cheaper and easier to manufacture and assemble.

The keyless mechanism of this movement was the subject of Swiss patent N° 97101, application date 2 August 1921 granted 1 December 1922. The subject of the patent is the winding mechanism crown wheel, the smaller of the two winding wheels which is turned by the winding pinion on the stem during winding. In the patented design the crown wheel is held onto the bridge of the movement by means of a fixed central core that is attached to the bridge by two screws. This is an improvement over the usual method of securing the crown wheel to the bridge by a single central screw, which usually has a left hand thread so that it does not unscrew during winding.

Dr Ranfft identifies this movement as an Alpina 819, Gruen 819 and Rolex 600.

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Beguelin & Cie SA, Tramelan and Damas

The company "Béguelin & Cie SA, Manufacture de Montres Damas et Tramelan Watch Co." is little recorded. The company was founded in Tramelan-dessous, apparently by Charles Edouard Béguelin and Berthold Meyrat. In 1950, Tramelan-dessous (lower Tramelan) merged with Tramelan-dessus (higher Tramelan) to form the current commune of Tramelan.

In “Swiss Timepiece Makers, 1775-1975” Kathleen H. Pritchard says the company was founded in 1903 although the company itself in adverts says 1902. However, the roots of the company stretch further back than this. Many people with the family name Béguelin were involved in watchmaking in Tramelan. In 1883, Charles Edouard Béguelin and Jules Abel Béguelin, both of Tramelan-Dessous, had founded a company in the town under the name Ch & A Béguelin for the manufacture of watches. Both partners were already in business as “fabricants d'horlogerie.” In 1888, Jules Abel left the partnership and the company continued under the name Chs Ed Béguelin. In May 1901, a watchmaking company in Tramelan-dessous under the name Charles Henri Béguelin was closed, and Edmond Béguelin and Arthur Béguelin founded Béguelin frères with the foundation date of 1 January 1901.

On 18 March 1905, Charles-Edouard Béguein and Reynold Chatelain, both from and residing in Trameian-dessous, set up a partnership under the business name Béguelin & Cie for the manufacture and finishing of ébauches. This partnership was dissolved on 16 May 1907 and the business taken over by a company under the same name, Béguelin & Cie, a limited partnership begun on 8 April 1907 by Charles-Edouard Béguelin and Berthold Meyrat, partners with unlimited liability, and Paul Droz with a liability of five thousand francs.

Trademarks used by Béguelin & Cie include the BTCo logo shown here, presumably for Béguelin Tramelan, BEG and a fancy letter M. In later years the brand name “Damas” was used prominently in advertising and on movements.

The movements shown below are all 13 ligne movements and they were all made by BTCo. The more remarkable fact is that they all use the same basic ébauche, only the shapes of the top plate bridges and cocks are different, the bottom plates, the train wheels and all parts apart from the top bridges and cocks are identical. Under the dial the similarity is revealed by the fact that they all have identical keyless mechanism.

Beguelin supplied movements to The Rolex Watch Company that were used in Marconi, Unicorn and RolCo branded watches. BobBee sent me details of a Beguelin movement marked ADMIRALTY on the ratchet wheel with two curved arrows joined by a small circle. I have seen the same ratchet wheels on Aegler movements. Wilsdorf registered Admiralty as a brand on 1 December 1922.

Beguelin also supplied movements to Ingersoll, and possibly others. If you have a Beguelin movement with a different name on it, please let me know.

Brian Daily has a watch with the movement marked Worcester and the case marked Beguelin. I have not been able to trace Worcester, but as the case is marked marked Beguelin it is probably one of their own "house" brands. Pritchard lists Avenir, Becosat, Beglin, Calan, Confidence, Damex, Idylle, Konig, Mithra, Tralin and The Stork as other brand and model names used by Beguelin in addition to Damas and Tramelan.

The first movement pictured here is from a trench watch with a black dial and fixed wire lug nickel case made by Dennison. It has the British Army military property broad arrow or "pheon" and a stores number on the case back. This appears to be one of the watches officially issued by the British Army beginning in 1917. It is slightly different from the group of movements in the section below; the click is different and the setting lever screw is in a slightly different place. But its similarity to the first of the movements in the group is obvious, the central bridge and the balance cock are very distinct shapes.

The five movements shown in the group below all have identically located setting lever screws, and all but the first have identical clicks. In all of these movements the keyless mechanism is identical, showing that they were all made by the one company. I have only shown this keyless mechanism once, from the last watch in the group. The bottom plate of that watch carries the BTCo. logo for a positive identification, the only one of the group that does. Thanks to Owen Gilchrist for allowing me to photograph these movements.

The similarities between the movements are as striking as their differences. The more you look the more similarities you see; the jewel holes for the third, fourth and escape wheels are in the same places, the screws that secure the bridges and cocks are in the same places, the case screws that secure the movements into their cases are in the same places. But the shapes of the bridges and cocks are so different that you might never suspect that these are essentially identical movements, which is precisely what the manufacturers intended.

The first movement in the group below has no brand name. The next is branded Rolco on the ratchet wheel, the same movement was also used in Marconi and Unicorn watches. The next two are branded Ingersoll, the first on the ratchet wheel, the second with Ingersoll "Elite" engraved on the main cock and gold filled, and the next one with 16 jewels has no brand name on it. The final picture shows the bottom plate and keyless mechanism, which is identical in all of these movements.

BTCo. calibre 40 RolCo movement

The Beguelin “tonneau form” or barrel shaped movement shown in the first image is branded ROLCO on the ratchet wheel, a truncation of “Rolex Company”.

The RolCo brand name was registered on 15th September 1927 and, like Marconi, Unicorn and other brands, was used for watches at lower price points than the top line Rolex branded watches.

The second picture is from Jobin's La Classification Horlogère Suisse. The size of the movement is given as 27 x 20mm or 8¾ x 12 lignes and there is a reference "No 40", presumably Beguelin's calibre reference.

The image in Jobin shows a basic grade of this movement with no train jewels but with Bouchons, brass bushes instead of jewels, dessus and dessous (above and below) in the top and bottom plates. Bouchons are a good idea because when they wear, they can be simply pressed out and replaced. Without a bouchon the plate itself would be worn, which is more difficult to correct. The RolCo movement in the photograph is fully jewelled to the third wheel with 15 jewels.

Watches with Wilsdorf's other brands on their movements such as Marconi, Unicorn or RolCo, are often described as a “Rolex watch”, but this is definitely not what Rolex would have called them. There was no secret that they were supplied by the Rolex Watch Company, but since they were intended to be brands that occupied a lower niche in the market than the top range of Rolex watches, these other watches were not branded Rolex and were not called Rolex watches by the Rolex Watch Company. They were called Marconi, Unicorn or RolCo watches by Rolex, and if any name appears on the dial it should be the same as the one on the movement. If the name Rolex appears on the dial, then it has been added more recently in an attempt to “upgrade” the watch. This is discussed in greater detail at Wilsdorf's Other Brands.

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Longines Calibre 13.34

Introduced in 1910, the Longines 13.34 savonnette movement was used in many wristwatches during World War One. The number 13.34 shows that is a 13 ligne movement, the unique number 34 after the decimal place identifies the savonnette layout. At the same time a Lépine version was also introduced, the calibre 13.33.

Often they do not carry the name Longines visibly, but the movements are quite easy to identify. The calibre number 13.34 is stamped on the top of the bottom plate and is visible next to the escape wheel. If you click on either of the pictures here and get an enlarged view you should be able to see the 13.34, just inside the case screw next to a copper coloured dot that is the end of a dial foot.

You should also be able to make out on the 18 jewel movement the "B & Co." mark of Baume & Co. who were Longines agent in the UK for many years.

The shape of the plates and bridges is very distinctive. The 18 jewel movement has the top plate that is most often seen, with individual cocks for the third, fourth and escape wheels.

The 13.34 ZZ movement is a variation on the basic design with the same barrel bridge shape but the three individual cocks of the third, fourth and escape wheels fused into a single bridge. This movement does not carry the Longines name, as required by many British retailers. This watch was sold by Mappin & Webb and carries their own "Mappin Campaign" name on the dial. The name is fired into the enamel and Longines told me that the requirement for this dial is recorded in their archives.

There is a third variant, the 13.34 AS, with all the train bearings in a single three quarter plate, only the balance has its own cock. This is a very "English" layout and I am sure that this calibre was created for the British market.

All variations of the Longines 13.34 movement operate at 18,000 vibrations per hour (vph) giving five ticks per second. They have a straight line Swiss lever escapement, a cut bimetallic temperature compensation balance with gold timing screws, and a blued carbon steel balance spring with a Breguet overcoil. All parts apart from the visible bridges and cocks are interchangeable between all three variants.

The lowest grade 13.34 movements imported by Baume had 15 jewels. The 13.34 ZZ movement shown here has this jewel count. The 13.34, which dates to 1913, has an extra three jewels, taking the jewel count to 18. The three extra jewels are a jewel bearing for the centre wheel top pivot, and two cap jewels for the escape wheel; the polished steel setting for the top escape wheel cap jewel stands out in the picture. The visible train jewels are set in "chatons", metal settings that are fixed in place with small screws.

When jewels were first used in the eighteenth century it was found difficult to make the jewel an exact size on its outer diameter with the hole exactly in the centre, so pierced jewels were set into metal settings called that could then be turned so that their outside was the desired diameter and concentric with the hole. Early jewels were often made from small pieces of gem stone that had been cut from a larger stone in the process of shaping and polishing it. These small pieces were called "kittens" by the gem cutters, or in French "chatons", which is how these settings came to be called by this name. By the time this movement was made the techniques of jewel grinding had advanced and the metal settings were no longer necessary, but they look good and so "top of the range" movements such as the Longines movement in the picture were fitted with them. They were an expensive piece of window dressing that had no effect on the going of the watch, which is why they are only fitted to the visible top holes, the ones the customer sees; the jewels in the bottom holes were rubbed in as usual.

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Longines Calibre 12.92

The Longines 12.92 movement was first made in 1903. It is a 12¼ lignes savonnette measuring 27.80mm x 4.10mm. The savonnette layout was used in hunter cased pocket watches, and for wristwatches. A Lépine version, the 12.91, was first made later, in 1906.

Often movements imported into Britain before the mid to late 1920s do not carry the name manufacturer's name visibly, this was not allowed by British retailers. Longines movements are usually quite easy to identify. The calibre number is usually stamped on the bottom plate and is visible next to the escape wheel. If you click on the picture here and get an enlarged view you should be able to see the 12.92, just inside the case screw near to a copper coloured dot that is the end of a dial foot.

You should also be able to make out on the bottom plate next to the foot of the balance cock part of a "B & Co." mark followed by three small stars, a trademark of Baume Company who were Longines agent in the UK for many years. Be aware that not all movements stamped with this trademark are Longines, Baume also imported watch from other makers.

The Longines 12.92 movement works at 18,000 vibrations per hour (vph) giving five ticks per second. It has a straight line Swiss lever escapement, a cut bimetallic temperature compensation balance with gold timing screws, and a blued carbon steel balance spring. The balance spring is flat, without an overcoil.

Longines movements imported into Britain were customised to suit British tastes. In addition to the absence of a maker's name, the plates are gilded and the screws blued to a purplish colour favoured by Longines. These finishes were traditionally used by the best English watchmakers and added to the cost. They were not used in other markets, for which Longines used the standard Swiss finish of nickel plating and polished screws.

As far as I can make out, all Longines movements imported into Britain were fully jewelled with 15 or more jewels, for other markets sometimes fewer jewels, e.g. 7 jewels, were used.

All these features, cut bimetallic temperature compensation balance with gold timing screws, gilded plates, blued screws, full jewelling and an overall high level of finish, show that Longines was making watches intended for the top end of the British market. In nineteenth century Britain, English watches were regarded as the best in the world and Swiss watches had a reputation as being basic and cheap. Longines were countering this by making watches of a quality that anyone would be proud to show off to their friends.

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Electa Wristwatch Movements

This is the movement I have found most frequently in my collection of Great War Borgel wristwatches or trench watches. Although there is no maker's mark anywhere on the movement I first identified it as an Electa movement from the name “Electa” which appears on the dial of one of the first watches I collected with this movement. It turns out that I was pretty lucky, very few watches with this movement have a name on the dial or on the movement and are completely anonymous. At the time, Electa was a division of Gallet.

The first movement shown here is a savonnette layout with the small seconds on the dial at 6 o'clock. It has 15 jewels, a split bi-metallic temperature compensated balance and Breguet overcoil balance spring.

In addition to the 15 jewel type, there was also a higher grade 17 jewel version with the jewels set in chatons, with Reed's whiplash regulator adjuster with swan neck spring for precise adjustment of the regulator lever. The swan neck springs of the Reed adjuster of these movements are often broken. I am planning to make some of these swan neck springs to replace the ones that are missing from my movements - I don't expect that it will be a quick or easy exercise. . . .

I also have an indirect centre seconds version of this movement, with the seconds hand driven off the arbor of the third wheel by multiplier gearing. This is the bottom picture to the right. A full explanation of the working of the centre seconds of this watch is given on the Watch Movements page.

This movement was also available with "negative set" or "American system" keyless mechanism.

When a negative set mechanism is present a setting lever screw, which normally releases the stem, is not fitted, as you can see in the picture to the left. To remove the movement from the case, there is no need to undo the setting lever screw as you would do for a positive set movement, just pull the crown out to the hand set position and the movement can be removed from the case by tilting it slightly.

Electa Catalogue 1914

Confirmation that these are indeed Electa movements was provided to me by David R. Laurence, Managing Director of The Gallet Group, Inc. www.GalletWatch.com who kindly provided me with the scan of a page from an Electa catalogue dated 1914, you can see some of the Electa movements I have pictured. It's interesting that even the 7 jewel basic version had a Bréguet balance spring and temperature compensated balance. The red rubies seem to be rather expensive, presumably they were natural gem stones rather than synthetic. You can read more about Electa and Gallet on my Gallet and Electa page.

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Electa Pocket Watch Movements

The photograph shows an Electa movement from a Borgel pocket watch. It is an open face pocket watch with the pendant at 12 o'clock so the movement is a Lépine layout. The fourth wheel arbor, which carries the seconds hand, is pivoted in the cock at the bottom of the picture, the one with "17 jewels" written on it. This is directly in line with the winding stem, which enters the movement at the top.

It is a high quality movement, jewelled to the centre with 17 jewels, four set in chatons as you can see in the picture. It has a Reed's whiplash regulator adjuster with swan neck spring for precise adjustment of the regulator lever.

The bridges and cocks are decorated with stripes or bands of decoration called Côtes de Genève, and you will notice that the stripes line up across all the bridges and cocks. I often wonder exactly how they did this, the stripes must have been made with all the cocks and bridges assembled on the bottom plate before the parts were nickel plated.

The second photograph shows a savonnette version of this movement. The similarity between the two movements is striking although they are quite different layouts. The barrel bridge is similar but reversed because the crown wheel and ratchet wheels are transposed. Close examination shows that this results in the centre bridge being completely different too, although at first sight it looks very similar.

The similarities between the two movements have allowed economies in manufacture to be made. The layout and positioning of the train wheels is identical in the two movements, and the fourth wheel cock, the escape wheel cock and the balance cock are all identical. The use of an identical layout for the train means that the wheels and arbors in the two different styles of movement are the same.

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IWC Calibre 63 and Calibre 64

All early IWC wristwatches use either the calibre 63 Lépine or calibre 64 Savonnette movement. These movements were the ideal size for a wristwatch. They first appear in the IWC movement and parts catalogue "Fournitures No. 1" dating from around 1891-92. These calibres use the same basic shapes for the plates and the escape and balance cocks, but laid out differently in the Lépine and Savonnette styles. The picture to the right shows this, and if you click on it you will get a larger version in a pop-up window which is clearer. Both of these movements are from Borgel wristwatches and so don't have long stems, but I have indicated where the stem is located. When a calibre 63 is used for a wristwatch the small seconds would be at 9 o'clock, so the small seconds are usually omitted in this configuration; the calibre 64 was used when small seconds were required.

Many of these calibre 63 and 64 movements were supplied to Stauffer & Co. of London who put them into wristwatch cases, and the movement in the picture is from one of these watches with a Borgel case. In this application they are made pin-set, that is they use a separate push piece to put the keyless mechanism into the hand setting position, so were ideally suited to the Borgel case with its split stem which allowed the movement to screw into and unscrew from the case. Note that it is not the "S&Co. under a crown or " PEERLESS" stamped on the movement underneath the balance which identifies this as an IWC movement - those are trademarks which belong to Stauffer, Son & Co. and also appear on movements sourced by Stauffer from other manufacturers.

I first identified the movement pictured as an IWC calibre 64 by comparing the shapes of the plates and bridges with diagrams in IWC " Fournitures" catalogues, and the IWC museum have since confirmed that it is a genuine IWC calibre 64 movement listed in their records. However, because it was supplied to Stauffer as a bare movement, IWC will not issue an "extract from the archives" for the watch as they did not supply the case.

There is more about IWC in general and the calibre 63 and 64 movements on my IWC page.

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Stauffer Branded Eterna Movements

Stauffer & Co. also obtained movements or watches from Eterna. The picture here shows an Eterna calibre 520 movement with the Stauffer trademarks on the barrel bridge of the intials S & Co. under a crown inside an oval surround, and the Stauffer trademark name "Peerless".

The movement shown here is a customised version of the Eterna calibre 520 movement with none standard bridge shapes. The picture from Jobin's "La classification horlogère des calibres de montres et des fournitures d'horlogerie suisse" 1936 edition shows the usual form of the barrel bridge and train bridge of the Eterna 520 movement, which are quite different to the Stauffer branded version, although the balance and escape cocks look very similar.

It seems likely that Stauffer asked for these changes to be made so that the movement appeared to be unique to them and not be easily recognised as an Eterna calibre. These bridge shapes were also used for other calibres that Eterna supplied to Stauffer, including a version of the Eterna 600 calibre.

I also have an 18 ligne pocket watch movement with the same bridge shapes that I have also identified as an Eterna from the keyless mechanism.

It was quite common thing for the Swiss ébauche factories to make variants like this of a basic movement. The vast majority of the components, including the bottom plate, remained exactly the same, but by changing the shape of the bridges and cocks while still leaving all the pivot holes in the same places, a movement could be given a very different appearance. Makers such as Fontainemelon (FHF) and A. Schild often produced several variants of a basic movement with different shaped bridges and cocks, and sometimes with different finishes to the visible surfaces such as gilding, perlage or Côtes de Genève.

The setting lever cover plate and spring detent remain the same for all versions of the Eterna 520 calibre and are the "fingerprint" of the movement. In the picture showing the keyless mechanism I have included the footprint picture of the Eterna 520 from a Bestfit catalogue.

At least some, perhaps all, of the Eterna movements supplied to Stauffer have the Stauffer ram logo doing under the barrel bridge as shown in the third picture here. This was a registered trademark belonging to Stauffer and so they could insist that it was applied to any movements that were supplied to them, just as they did with IWC. Does this mean that there was any connection between Eterna and IWC? No, other than that they both supplied movements or watches to Stauffer.

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Tavannes Cyma Cal. 330/331/332/333

The photograph shows a 13''' (thirteen ligne) Tavannes Calibre 330 series 13''' (13 ligne) movement from a Borgel wristwatch. Although this particular movement has the legend "Tavannes Watch Co" engraved on the ratchet wheel, these movements are often seen without any reference to the manufacturer. The shape of the main cock (not a bridge) holding the pivots of the centre, third and fourth wheels is very distinctive.

This particular movement is in a Borgel screw case watch hallmarked 1928/29. The plates and cocks are decorated with Côtes de Genè, or Geneva Stripes. This movement is seen in several grades from basic 15 jewel with no decoration to movements with extra jewels, jewels set in chatons, and decoration including Côtes de Genè as here, and perlage.

The insert to the right shows the entry in the 1936 edition of Jobin "La Classification Horlogère des Calibres de Montres ... Suisse". It shows that the movement is a 13 ligne calibre. Given the four numbers below the calibre size under the Réf, the meaning of the "3B" is not clear.

The entry in Jobin indicates that this movement was made in both savonnette (Ref 330 - 332) and Lépine (Ref 331 - 333) forms. The movements shown in the photograph and the picture from Jobin are both savonnette layout, suitable for wristwatches with small seconds at 6 o'clock.

This movement was made with both normal stem winding and setting and negative or American set. It seems quite likely that the 330/331 forms were normal set and the 332/333 variants were negative set.

Sometimes the name Admiral, a Tavannes brand, or Admiral Tacy (a combination of TAvannes and CYma) appears on the watch. I have also seen this movement with the brand "Stayte" on the distinctive central finger.

U.S. PAT 24 May 1904

These movements often bear a reference to a US patent "U.S. PAT 24 May 1904" or "U.S. PAT 24 MAY. 1904" (the stamp is poor in the P and it often looks like "U.S. FAT 24 May 1904"). This is a reference to patent US 760647 for a negative set stem winding and setting mechanism granted to Sandoz on that date, which is a US version of Swiss patent CH 28243 that was granted to Sandoz in 1903.US Pat 24 May 1904, US PAT 24 MAY 1904.

When this legend appears on the movement it shows that the keyless mechanism was designed on the "negative set" or "American system" principles. These movements are seen with either normal or negative set mechanisms. In Britain the negative set versions are usually in Dennison cases, which is not surprising given that the Dennison watch case company was set up to make cases for imported American Waltham movements.

If negative set keyless mechanism is present in one of these movements, the setting lever screw, which normally releases the stem, is not present and the legend "U.S. PAT 24 May 1904" is stamped where the setting lever screw would be. The movement shown in the photograph above has a setting lever screw, which you can see just above the crown wheel, slightly off to the left towards the screw that holds the barrel bridge in place. The barrel bridge shown in the picture on the immediate does not have a setting lever screw, which would be about where the "19" of the "1904" part of the legend is. I have inverted this photograph compared to the main one above to make the legend U.S.Pat.24 MAY.1904 the right way up.

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Tavannes Cyma Cal. 370/371

The pictures show a 13''' (thirteen ligne) Tavannes Calibre 370 savonnette movement from a Borgel wristwatch. Thanks to Marc for providing the photo. These movements are also seen branded Cyma.

The drawing to the right shows the entry in the 1936 edition of Jobin La Classification Horlogère des Calibres de Montres ... Suisse. The entry shows that this calibre was size 13''' (13 ligne, about 29.3mm diameter). I don't know what the "-7" means, perhaps it was the seventh 13''' calibre they made. The entry also shows that the same basic movement was made in two layouts, calibres reference 370 and 371.

The Ref. 370 is a savonnette movement, the type used in savonnette or hunter pocket watches with a metal lid to protect the crystal, and also in open face wristwatches with the small seconds at 90° to the crown, that is with the crown at 3 and the small seconds at 6.

The Ref. 371 is a Lépine movement for open face pocket watches with the crown at 12 and the small seconds at 6. In a wristwatch, this layout would put the small seconds at 9 o'clock. If this calibre was used in a wristwatch, the small seconds would usually be omitted.

Most of the parts, the wheels, escapements, spring barrels, etc. of these movements are interchangeable, and also interchangeable with other 13''' Tavannes calibres of the same age, but the two main plates are different for the two layouts. The savonnette version is the one most often seen in wristwatches; pocket watches with either calibre and the Lépine version of the movement are much rarer, I have never seen one.

On some of these movements, the calibre reference is stamped on the top of the bottom plate, visible underneath the balance.

The movements in both pictures have a simple form of engine turning called damascened or damascening (pronounced with a soft "c" like "damaseened"). Damascening originates in the technique used by swordsmiths of Damascus of repeated forging and folding metal into many layers like mille-feuille pastry to produce sword blades of legendary toughness, which produces intricate banded patterns on the surface of the finished blade.

Damascening is different in appearance to the Côtes de Genè (Geneva Stripes) or perlage seen on other Swiss movements such as the Tavannes 13''' -3B and the Schild Calibre 137 on this page, although the process for making the patterns was similar. The style of damascening on the movements pictured here, individual straight or wavy lines rather than overall decoration of the plates with a repeated pattern, was principally used by American manufacturers, and in America is called damaskeening. It was done either by hand or machine, and in the highest grade of America watches was much more elaborate than the simple version seen here. Decoration such as damasceening was particularly important to American manufacturers when movements and cases were selected separately at the point of sale; a movement needed to catch the customers eye.

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Fontainemelon 1

This 13''' (thirteen ligne) movement was made by Fabrique d'Horlogerie Fontainemelon (FHF).

The number 1 is my number for ease of reference, it is not the Fontainemelon calibre number. This movement does not appear in Jobin or any other reference I have. The 1936 edition of Jobin suggests that Fontainemelon movements are stamped on the dial side of the bottom plate with the FHF logo with the first F reversed to make ꟻHF. The earliest date of registration of the ꟻHF logo (without the curly surround shown in the image here) seems to have been 1919, which suggests that this movement is earlier because it does not have that mark.

In 1891 Fontainemelon registered a trademark of an arrow through an apple, a reference to William Tell, the folk hero whose defiance of the established order led to a rebellion and the formation of the Swiss Confederation, and this arrow through apple or William Tell trademark can be seen on the top of bottom plate only when the barrel bridge is removed. You can see the apple with an arrow through it in the bottom right corner of the picture, I have indicated the barrel bridge screw which fits in the screw hole shown in the cut out.

In 1925 ébauches SA was formed as an association of 26 ébauche makers, including Fontainemelon, A. Schild, ETA (at the time the movement division of Eterna), and a number of other Swiss ébauche makers. The curly surround shown in the image here was added to the ꟻHF logo at that time, in common with its addition to the logos of other members of ébauches SA.

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Fontainemelon 2

This is another 13''' (thirteen ligne) movement by Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon. The number 2 is my number for ease of reference, it is not the Fontainemelon calibre number which I have not yet discovered and which, given the early date of this movement, may never be discovered.

This movement was identified by the Fontainemelon patent number 51482 stamped on the bottom plate under the dial. This patent for a "Mécanisme de remontage et de mise à l'heure" (a mechanism for winding the watch and setting the hands, i.e. a "stem set" or "keyless"mechanism) was granted to Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon. It has a priority date of 3 May 1910 and was published 1 September 1911.

This movement is virtually identical to the Fontainemelon Movement 1 pictured above, apart from the shape of the centre bridge. The click that stops the ratchet wheel reversing which is a simpler one piece design, which would reduce its cost. The two types of click are not interchangeable, which suggests that the movement with the simpler click is later.

George Mallory's Watch

George Mallory's Borgel wristwatch was recovered when his body was found on Mount Everest. It has the same Fontainemelon movement as the first shown in this section, but with a higher degree of finish. The plates are decorated with perlage, a circular graining decoration that looks like pearls, produced by lowering a spinning wooden peg charged with abrasive paste onto the surface. It also has end stones (cap jewels) for the pivots of the escape wheel as well as the balance, bringing the jewel count up to 17. The click is different from the simplified click on the movement shown in this section, but identical to the click on the Fontainemelon 1 above.

George Mallory, with Andrew Irvine, was probably the first person to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, and a Borgel wristwatch probably beat both Smiths and Rolex to the top of the world. You can read more about Mallory's Borgel wristwatch and how it was recovered at A Borgel on Mount Everest.

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Fontainemelon 3

This is another 13''' (thirteen ligne) movement by Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon, identified by the William Tell mark of an arrow through an apple on the bottom plate under the barrel bridge. The number 3 is my number for ease of reference, it is not the Fontainemelon calibre number which I have not yet discovered and which, given the early date of this movement, may never be discovered.

The second picture shows the bottom plate, which is usually covered by the dial. The visible mechanism at the top is the keyless mechanism that allows the watch to be wound and set by the crown. The shape of the cover plate work that holds the yoke and return spring in place is very distinctive.

This movement is from a Borgel watch so it has a pin set mechanism for setting the hands. Instead of a setting lever, the steel part held in place by the setting lever screw and the screw with a large head on its left hand end is fixed, holding the short movement stem in place. When pressed by the pin set the yoke pivots around the screw on its right hand end to move the sliding pinion down into the hand setting position. When the pin set is released the return spring pushes the yoke and the sliding pinion back into the winding position.

If you have a movement like this, don't just look at the centre bridge because A. Schild made a movement with a very similar centre bridge which you can see at A. Schild calibre 168.

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Fontainemelon 4

This is another movement by Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon (FHF).

Although it carries no marks that are visible when the movement is in a watch case, identification is straight forward once the movement is removed from the case and the hands and dial removed. The “y” shaped cover plate over the keyless mechanism is very distinctive and found on many Fontainemelon ébauches of this period (early twentieth century).

Many of these movements also carry the Fontainemelon “William Tell” trademark of an arrow through an apple, although this is often on the bottom plate, sometimes concealed under the barrel bridge, where it is not visible until the movement is partially or fully dismantled.

The number 4 is my number, not the Fontainemelon calibre number which I have not yet discovered and which, given the early date of this movement, may never be discovered.

The first image is a movement from a Borgel wristwatch, you can see the carrier ring around the movement. The two copper coloured pins sticking up from the bottom plate in the gaps between the bridges are the dial feet, the upper one is missing the screw that should hold it in position.

The image of the bottom plate is from another movement with identical top plates. The keyless mechanism cover plate is the characteristic “y” shape that identifies many similar movements by Fontainemelon. This one is stamped with the B & Co. mark with three stars, the trademark of Baume & Co., the long time British agent for Longines. Obviously this movement has nothing to do with Longines and shows that Baume also imported watches with Fontainemelon movements.

The smaller image is from yet another movement with the same top plate and keyless mechanism, with both B&Co. and Fontainemelon arrow through apple trademarks stamped onto the bottom plate.

Note that Fabrique d'ébauches de Fleurier (FEF) made an ébauche with a very similar train bridge. Look for differences in the shape of the barrel bridge.

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Fontainemelon 6

This is 13''' (thirteen ligne) movement or ébauche made by Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon, identified by the distinctive "y" shape of the cover plate over the keyless mechanism.

The number 6 is my number for ease of reference, it is not the Fontainemelon calibre number which I have not yet discovered and which, given the early date of this movement, may never be discovered.

The shape of the cover plate over the keyless mechanism that holds the yoke and return spring in place is very distinctive. This movement is from a Borgel watch so it has a pin set mechanism for setting the hands.

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Fontainemelon 7

This is 13''' (thirteen ligne) movement or ébauche made by Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon, identified by the distinctive "y" shape of the cover plate over the keyless mechanism.

The number 7 is my number for ease of reference, it is not the Fontainemelon calibre number which I have not yet discovered and which, given the early date of this movement, may never be discovered.

The one shown in the images here is a higher grade than the standard 15 jewel movement. It has end stones for the escape wheel pivots which are not usually fitted. The top one is in the polished steel setting on the tip of the escape cock. On the bottom plate there are two small round plates held in place by single screws; these are end stone settings; the one at the bottom of the image is for the balance staff, the one to the right for the escape wheel.

The use of end stones for the escape wheel bearings allows the pivots of the escape wheel arbor to be made conical and is beneficial for lubrication. This type of bearing is essential for the balance staff so that the balance can oscillate with as little friction as possible, but in practice on the escape wheel bearings it doesn't achieve much more than being a nice visual addition.

The shape of the cover plate over the keyless mechanism that holds the yoke and return spring in place is very distinctive and identifies this movement as an ébauche made by Fontainemelon.

This movement has a pin set or push pin mechanism for setting the hands. The stem, which is missing in the image, doesn't move and is normally held in a fixed axial position by the small plate above the left hand arm of the cover plate. In a stem set movement this would be a setting lever which would pivot about the setting lever screw, the head of which is visible above the left hand arm of the cover plate. In a pin set mechanism the stem does not pull out to set the hands, so the plate is fixed in place by the large screw on its left hand end. The pin which is pushed to put the keyless mechanism into hand set mode operates on the shoulder of the yoke which moves the sliding pinion. This is shown in the entry for Fontainemelon 5.

This movement carries the brand name "Forward" on the bottom plate, possibly derived from the "Fo" in Fontainemelon. As this is a common word used in everyday speech it was not a great idea for a brand and didn't last. It isn't even mentioned in "Swiss Timepiece Makers 1775-1975" by Kathleen H. Pritchard.

Although not stated on the movement, the two extra end stones for the escape wheel give a total jewel count of 17, as follows:

Location	Number	Total
Balance staff pivots	2 jewel holes, 2 end stones	4
Impulse jewel	1 pin	1
Pallet fork	2 pallets stones, 2 pallet staff jewel holes	4
Third, fourth and escape wheel pivots	3 pairs of jewel holes	6
Escape wheel end stones	2 end stones	2
	Total Jewels	17

Thanks to Roy for the images.

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Fontainemelon 8

This movement really had baffled me for ages, it was previously listed as Mystery Movement 3. Fortunately Peter D. found a Fontainemelon arrow-through-apple trademark on one, so the mystery has been solved.

This is a small, circa 11 ligne, high grade movement found in smaller Borgel screw-case watches, as well as others. It is a jewelled Swiss lever movement, but a higher than normal grade. It is jewelled to the centre and has end stones on the escape wheel pivot bearings, so probably 18 jewels, although this one is not marked with a jewel count.

The extra three jewels above the standard 15 are two end stones to the escape wheel, the top one is in the polished steel setting visible on the escape wheel cock, and one jewel to the top bearing of the centre wheel. The top bearing of the centre wheel takes most of the thrust of the drive from the mainspring barrel, so it wears more than the bottom one if not jewelled. If the bottom bearing of the centre wheel is jewelled, it can make it difficult to remove the cannon pinion without cracking the jewel, so there is a good reason for the apparent “economy” of not jewelling the bottom bearing.

Watches with these smaller high grade movements were considerably more expensive. The Harrods advertisement from 1918 reproduced here quotes £3 3 0 (three pounds three shillings and zero pence or £3.15 in today's money) for a Borgel (patent sold one-piece case into which the movement screws) wristwatch with a standard size 15 jewel movement, £4 12 6 (four pounds 12 shillings and sixpence) for a higher grade movement, and £5 for a smaller sized watch with higher grade movement.

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A. Schild Calibre 137

This is an A. Schild 13''' (thirteen ligne) Calibre 137 Reference 1333 movement from a wristwatch officially issued by the War Office during the war. The watch has a screw back and bezel nickel case made by Dennison with the pheon or broad arrow mark of government military property, and an Army stores number. Watches with pheons were issued to "other ranks". Officers were expected to wear a wristwatch, which they purchased using their outfit or kit allowance, along with their uniform, sword, revolver, etc. These effects were the officers possessions and because they were not issued from army stores they are not marked with the pheon of government property.

The movement was identified as an A. Schild movement by the factory mark of AS in oval on the bottom plate under the dial. The exact calibre and reference was determined from the 1936 edition of "La Classification Horlogère Suisse".

Movements of the same calibre frequently have different finishes applied to the plates. This does not affect the calibre The basic finish is nickel plating; higher grades include gold plating or various forms of decoration. The decoration on the plates of the movement in the image here is called "perlage", which is form of engine turning produced by pressing the end of a rotating wooden peg charged with abrasive powder repeatedly onto the surface to form a pattern of overlapping circles. (Engine turning done with a machine which cuts a fine pattern into a moving surface with a stationary cutting tool using a machine called a rose engine lathe is called "Guilloché." This is often seen on dials and cases but not on movements.)

A. Schild

The Schild family, along with the Girards, set up the first factories in Grenchen making ébauches (bare watch movements), and this became the principal industry in the area. Urs Schild founded Eterna in Grenchen in 1856.

Adolph Schild was the younger brother of Urs Schild and worked at Eterna. In 1896 he left and, with Stefan Zimmermann, set up the company “A Schild & Cie” in Grenchen. The intention was to make high quality ebauches with all parts being interchangeable, and the company did much research into tooling to achieve this. In 1914 the company won a gold medal at the Swiss National Exhibition in Berne for the interchangeability of its parts.

A Schild supplied ébauches to many watch manufacturers, including Gruen and Girard Perregaux, and supplied to Fortis the movements for John Harwood's revolutionary self winding wristwatch.

In 1925, “Ébauches SA” was formed as an association of 26 ébauche makers, including A. Schild, Fontainemelon, ETA (at the time the movement division of Eterna), and a number of other Swiss ébauche makers.

From 1939, each member of the association was identified by a logo based on their initials within the common “ETA” surround. A. Schild movements were identified by the surround with the letters “AS” inside.

The separate companies were acquired by ETA over the years and today the whole company is called simply "ETA S.A. Manufacture Horlogère Suisse". The logo includes the statement "depuis 1793", a reference to the oldest company in the group, Fontainemelon.

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A. Schild movement Calibre 168

This is an A. Schild Calibre 168 movement.

The calibre and reference was determined from the 1936 edition of Jobin's "La Classification Horlogère Suisse", an extract from which is also shown.

The movement in the photograph is not a 13 ligne as the extract from the classification says, but is smaller, around 11 lignes. Schild made this design in several different sizes.

The watch that this movement is from has a nine carat gold case with Stockwell and Company's sponsor's mark GS and London Assay Office import hallmarks for 1926/27. It also has a Swiss Poinçon de Maître, the mysterious Hammer with Handle, which carries the number 130. The movement carries the trademark Sunbeam 554 engraved on the barrel bridge.

This calibre is very similar in appearance to a calibre made by Fontainemelon which I have shown at Fontainemelon 3.

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Early Omega Wristwatch Movement

This is a movement from a wristwatch dated by the case hallmarks to circa 1914/15, so almost certainly a trench watch from World War One. Thanks to Tom at Gungadin Watches for the heads up on this watch, and to Tom and Colin for the photographs.

The screw bezel swing ring case (not shown) has London Assay Office import hallmarks for sterling 925 silver, with the date letter "t" for the years 1914 to 1915 – remember that date letter punches were used over two calendar years. It also has the sponsor's mark SA of the Selling Agency, a branch of Dimier Brothers who were Omega's distributors in the UK at that time.

The Selling Agency sponsor's mark suggested Omega, but definitive proof of the manufacturer is found in the keyless mechanism, the “fingerprint” of a movement. I couldn't find anything like this in the Bestfit and Swartchild books because they are much later, but the keyless mechanism is so unusual with the intermediate wheel is attached to yoke that I managed to find a post Watchmaker Forum which shows a repair to a watch clearly marked Omega on the top plate which has the same keyless mechanism. This led me to a patent granted to Louis Brandt & frère in 1894.

This keyless mechanism is very unusual because, although it is a sliding pinion type mechanism similar to that patented by Adrien Philippe in 1845, the yoke that moves the sliding sleeve also carries the intermediate setting wheel of the hand set mechanism as you can see in the photograph of the keyless mechanism. When the yoke moves the sliding sleeve and intermediate wheel downwards, the intermediate wheel engages with the wheel labelled ‘D’ in the figure, which is the minute wheel of the motion work. Turning the minute wheel sets the hands.

In the usual design of keyless mechanism, the intermediate setting wheel or wheels turn on pivots fixed to the plate and are permanently engaged with the minute wheel. When the stem is pulled into the hand set position, the sliding pinion is moved to engage with the intermediate wheel. In the patented Omega design, the sliding pinion and the intermediate setting wheel are always engaged and the yoke moves them both into gear with the minute wheel. It is an unusual hybrid of sliding sleeve and rocking bar mechanism. The benefit is that intermediate wheel is not permanently engaged with the keyless mechanism so its turning friction cannot affect the normal running of the watch.

The image here of a figure from the Swiss patent granted to Louis Brandt & Frère on 1 August 1894 shows this design of keyless mechanism. The yoke carrying the moveable intermediate wheel is easily seen. Although the mechanism in the figure is reversed left right compared to the one in the photograph, the similarity is clear.

The keyless mechanism definitively identifies the movement as being manufactured by a Brandt company, and movements with the same shapes of the top plates are shown in A Journey Through Time (AJTT) by Marco Richon, Chapter 1, Sister Brands, on page 41 under the brand Celtic, and on page 42 under the brand Regina. (Thanks to Tom C. for pointing this out). I have never seen an imported watch from this period bearing either of these brand names, principally because English retailers refused to stock watches with the names or brands of foreign manufacturers on them, see Names on the Dial.

The serial number in the 4,76x,xxx range is in the right range for an Omega movement made circa 1914/15 and ties in perfectly with the case hallmark date of 1914 to 1915. I doubt that Omega's sister brand movements were given serial numbers from the same sequence as Omega movements. This suggests that the watch would have been branded Omega if English retailers allowed that at the time, hence my identification of this as an Omega watch.

The case was probably sent to England empty and unfinished to be hallmarked, and then returned to the case maker in Switzerland. Unwanted marks from the hallmarking process, scrapes where a sample of material had been drawn and bruises on the outside of the case from where it had been punched inside, were removed and the case was polished. The finished case was then sent to the Omega factory, where it was fitted with its movement.

The finished wristwatch was then sent back to Britain where, at the time, there was a tremendous demand for trench watches from newly commissioned officers getting kitted out before heading off to the front in World War One.

Although the movement does not carry any name at all, the Selling Agency sponsor's mark, Omega sequence serial number, and the coincidence of another watch with the same keyless mechanism that is branded Omega, persuaded me that this watch would have been branded Omega if English retailers allowed that at the time, which they did not. However, Brandt also sold the same movement under the brands Celtic and Regina.

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General Watch Company Helvetia

The images here show two 13''' (thirteen ligne) fifteen jewel movements with Swiss lever escapement.

The one with a single bridge for all the train wheels is from a Borgel wristwatch dated to 1918/1919 by London Assay Office import hallmarks and has a bi-metallic compensation balance and Breguet overcoil balance spring. The second movement has a separate cock for the escape wheel and is marked “Marconi Lever” on the train bridge.

Both of these movements were made by the General Watch Company. Although at first sight they appear quite different, if you ignore the finishes to the plates and the area around the escape wheel bearing, just looking at the barrel bridge and top line of the centre bridge, it is easy to see they are the same. So long as the location of the pivot holes for the train wheels are in the same place, the shape of the bridges or cocks are irrelevant and manufacturers often used this to make movements that looked different but in which most of the components were identical. The different placement of the stem securing screws is because the Borgel cased movement is pin set whereas the Marconi movement is stem set.

The movement is a savonnette layout, which was used in hunter pocket watches and open faced wristwatches because the winding stem at the three o'clock position allows a small sub-seconds display on the dial at the six o'clock position. This movement was also made in a Lépine layout for open face fob watches, placing the stem at 12 o'clock and the sub-seconds at six o'clock.

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Mystery Movement 1

This movement has me baffled. It is a 13''' (thirteen ligne) movement from a World War One era Borgel screw-case wristwatch. I thought at first glance that it was the same as Fontainemelon 6 but closer examination showed that the top plates were quite different from that movement, and the keyless mechanism is different too. There are no identifying marks on the bottom plate.

The 10½ ligne A. Schild 490 shown in the black and white image is a smaller, more compact, and much later movement, the keyless mechanism cover plate with integral detent spring shows that it is from circa 1930 onwards. However, the similarities between this and the mystery movement are striking. The barrel bridge (the large plate that carries the crown and ratchet wheels) and the balance cock are very similar. The mystery movement has a single cock for the third and fourth wheel bearings, but if this was split the resulting two cocks would look very much like the later movement.

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Mystery Movement No. 2: Kurth Frères, Grenchen.

The movement shown in the first three images is from a Borgel wristwatch. Although it is not marked on the top plate with a maker's name, identical movements such as the two shown further down on this page have been seen stamped with 'Vacheron', leading some to the obvious conclusion that they were made by Vacheron Constantin. However, I am now sure that this calibre was made by Kurth Frères of Grenchen (French "Granges"), who also made watches under the brand names Grana and Certina.

It appears that from 1881, and perhaps earlier, the British branch of Vacheron Constantin not only sold watches made in their own factory in Geneva, but also bought and imported movements from Kurth Frères, and possibly other manufacturers, which were stamped with a British registered "Vacheron" trademark.

The Borgel wristwatch case has Glasgow Assay Office import hallmarks for 1915 to 1916, remember that hallmark date letters span two calendar years. There are two sponsor's marks present, the 'GS' of Stockwell & Company, and 'F.W' in cameo within a rectangular surround with cut corners. This mark is not recorded in the Glasgow records that still exist, but Philip Priestly identifies it as similar to marks entered at the London, Birmingham and Chester assay offices by Frederick Wright of Coventry. The reason for there being two sponsor's marks is not known. It might be that Wright was not registered to send items to the Glasgow assay office but encountered some delay at the English assay offices so sent the work to Glasgow via Stockwell & Company, who were registered at Glasgow so applied their sponsor's mark.

The quality is the normal high standard of movement for a Borgel wristwatch, which were always fitted with good quality jewelled Swiss lever escapement ébauches with at least 15 jewels. The Borgel case was expensive so it was only used with top quality movements.

The cut bimetallic temperature compensation balance is fitted with gold mass screws that can be moved to adjust the compensation, the balance spring has a Breguet overcoil. The train is jewelled to the third wheel for a total of fifteen jewels.

The components are nicely finished and the plates and bridges are frosted and gilded, a traditional English finish that was designed to appeal to British buyers.

This is a good quality Swiss jewelled lever movement, capable of good timekeeping even by today's standards. However, it has no exceptional features; e.g. there is no micro adjuster for the regulator, no end stones for the escape wheel bearings, and the screw heads are polished but not blued, so although it is very good, it is not the highest quality.

There are no identifying marks on the top plate or the bottom plate under the dial. However, when I took the movement apart for cleaning I found the tiny "KF" trademark on the top side of the bottom plate as shown ringed in red in one of the images. It is placed where it is normally underneath the barrel bridge and completely invisible until the movement is dismantled.

The first KF that springs to mind is Kurth Frères of Grenchen who also made watches under the brands Grana and Certina. There was also a company called Kocher & Froideveaux and another called Kummer Freres, but I was not able to tie the KF trademark definitively to any of them until further information turned up.

A correspondent Dominic has a watch with one of these movements. The case is a nickel screw back and bezel. In the case back is the trademark KF over G within a surround as shown in the small image here. This trademark was registered by Kurth Frères on 9 August 1910, which to my mind removes any doubt about who actually made these movements. The question then is: why are some of these Kurth Frères movements stamped “Vacheron”?

The two pictures of the same movement but with Vacheron on the barrel bridges are ones that I found on the internet, thanks to their respective owners as noted. The Vacheron mark is quite crudely done in both cases. The marks are also completely different, and in different places on the plates. These don't look like a mark that the Vacheron Constantin factory would make, but on the other hand they are underneath the gilding, which suggests they were put on when the movements were being made. It is difficult to envisage a forger taking the movements apart, stamping the marks, and then having the plates re-gilded.

Owen Gilchrist pointed out to me that the oval logo with the four stars is shown in the "Watch Trademark Index of European Origin" by Karl Kochmann. It is recorded by Kochmann as being registered in England in December 1881 by Philippe-Auguste Weiss, a director of Vacheron Constantin from 1875, which ties the mark to the company.

The British Trade Marks Journal on the 19th September 1883 recorded the mark as: No. 27,258. Vacheron & Constantin, 1, Rue & Quai des Moulins, Geneva, Switzerland – Four stars arranged elliptically, and the name “ Vacheron ”.

It appears that the British branch of Vacheron Constantin not only sold watches made in their own factory in Geneva but, from 1881 or perhaps earlier, also bought and imported watches from Kurth Frères, and perhaps others, which were stamped with the British registered "Vacheron" trademark. All the watches I have seen with cases that are hallmarked have British import hallmarks, showing that they were not cased in Britain but were imported as complete watches. All the movements that I have seen with this mark are good quality, with lever escapements, fully jewelled, and with gilded plates. But it is clear that they were not made by Vacheron Constantin in Geneva.

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Manzoni Arogno

The centre bridge of this movement is very distinct, with its long slim finger on the right hand end. The ébauche was made by Manzoni, later part of "Fabriques d'Ébauches Réunies d'Arogno".

The company was founded in 1873 by Alessandro Manzoni (1820 - 1890), who bought a share in an existing factory in Voyeboeuf, a suburb of Porrentruy. A new factory was built in Arogno in the district of Lugano in the canton of Ticino, located south of Lake Lugano in the southernmost tip of Switzerland which forms a salient into northern Italy. All the machinery from the old factory and about 100 workers were moved to the new factory. It was the first ébauche factory south of the Alps.

The history of the company is murky, with some workers leaving to form a rival enterprise. The two companies were absorbed into ébauches SA under the name Fabriques d'Ébauches Réunies d'Arogno.

The smaller image shows a curly "M" trademark which can usually be found on the bottom plate under the dial. Other Arogno / Manzoni trademarks were a capital M inside a diamond surround, and an A inside the ébauches SA surround.

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A Michel Cal. 220

This movement was made by A Michel SA of Grenchen. The date of founding is not known. The earliest document seems to be a patent taken out in 1916 for a winding mechanism.

In 1925 A Michel SA joined ébauches SA, an association of 26 ébauche makers, including Fontainemelon, A. Schild, ETA (at the time the movement division of Eterna), and a number of other Swiss ébauche makers.

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Movado Calibre 420

The movements shown in the images here were made by Movado and used in trench watches and later wristwatches.

The catalogue image identifies the version with the cut away train bridge as a calibre 420. This is a savonnette layout movement suitable for wristwatches. A Lépine version of the same movement was made, the calibre 480. The version with the full train bridge is not listed.

The version with the full train bridge is from a trench watch with a Borgel screw case advertised on eBay with London Assay Office import hallmark in the case for 1915 to 1916. The version with the cut away train bridge is housed in a Dennison screw back and bezel case with Birmingham Assay Office hallmarks for 1916 to 1917.

Spare part catalogues of parts for Swiss watch movements only began to be produced in the 1940s, therefore the version with the cut away train bridge must have been in production later than the one with the full train bridge, and indeed the cut away train bridge does look like a very simple modification of the earlier design. Apart from the removal of part of the train bridge, the two versions are identical in all major, and most minor, details.

The most significant difference between the two movements is that the earlier one from the Borgel trench watch has a screw next to the crown wheel that releases the setting lever so that the stem can be withdrawn before removing the movement from the case (although this is not necessary with a Borgel screw case). The later movement does not have a setting lever screw, which shows that it has American style negative set keyless work. This difference is not due to the relative ages or stage of development of the two movements, both types of keyless work were made at the times when both movements were made.

Both versions of the movement in the images have monometallic balances and silver coloured balance springs, as does the movement in the catalogue image. Since these are high quality jewelled lever escapement movements, the presence of a monometallic balance means that the balance spring is made of a temperature compensating nickel steel alloy. The first temperature compensating nickel steel balance springs were made in 1897 by Paul Perret with the collaboration of Dr Guillaume.