Reply With QuoteReal mission impossible here....any chance to open it???
A colleague showed me this beautiful little dress watch today that he's had sat in a drawer for years:
I couldn't see a manufacturer's name anywhere, can anyone hazard a guess? I presume it's from the 60s.
These rubbish photos don't do it justice, it just needs a new strap and a service and it would be mint. If I didn't have my Tudor Oyster dress watch I'd have been tempted to make him an offer!
Vintage watches have an elegance sadly lacking in modern watches....
Real mission impossible here....any chance to open it???
Difficult to have any idea what it is without having the back off and even then it might not tell you much. The fact that it's in a base metal plated case suggests it won't be anything too valuable or horologically interesting. Nice little thing though.
Ha I doubt I could persuade him to let me do that! Perhaps if / when it's serviced.Originally Posted by cirotti
I doubt we would ever be able to say who made the watch case these things are very rarely signed inside the case.
The movement however should be signed (at a guess I would say it will be an AS or FHF of some kind) Won't be anything fancy but nice enough.
If your colleague is willing to let it out of their sight for a week and let us post pictures in this tread? I'll strip, clean and re-oil the movement for them FOC.
Wow that's a kind offer animalone! I shall pass on your offer and see what he says
No worries, if you have any questions just drop me a message.
There is a bit of quality in the dial and hands. But without taking the back off - very hard to say. It's not impossible that the dial / movement might have been re-cased.
It likely dates from the 60's and there was a proliferation of "makes" at this time. Most with a generic movement in them. Still it is pretty and a bit of a tidy up and a new strap would work wonders.
The watch has arrived so we can now have a look at the movement.
It is a Standard / A. Schild calibre 1686
It is a little bit grubby on the plates and running very fast (+50s/d) but first impression is that it is in relatively good order and should clean up with out too much trouble.
I should get it cleaned over the weekend and will post more pictures as we go.
You are a gent Ian, I shall be watching this thread with interest!
De-casing the watch removing the hands and dial I had also removed the balance at this point
The movement is broken down into most of the parts ready to go in the baskets (Please excuse the stain on the matt an old solvent spill)
You can see that the mainspring has set and needs to be replaced (hopefully the new one is with me tomorrow so I can start re-building again)
Movement parts in the basket about to go in the cleaning machine (little black baskets are for the small parts that would otherwise get lost or damaged in the big ones)
Shot through the microscope showing one of the smaller screws (on a 10p coin for scale)
Case is cleaned up with a quick wash, it is a plated case and has started to chip through in a couple of places so I would not risk polishing it. I also polywatched the crystal to take the worst of the marks off, strangely the crystal was also scratched on the inside???
Last edited by animalone; 13th January 2017 at 18:13.
Great work animalone, very decent of you.
I have a 1915 Omega that I would like identifying. I will send it up.
Feel free to PM me a picture and any questions, but it doesn't sound like the kind of thing I like working on for other people (antiques make me nervous)
Unclealec is a bit of an antique and makes me nervous too.
Last edited by Kirk280; 15th January 2017 at 15:37.
Didn't you also offer a free strap (and to fit it) to the member who was ranting about a strap he'd bought? Our own super hero!
Great to see the update. Lovely gesture. Top marks to you
Ah the strapwas just trying to help him, but you can't win them all
Last edited by animalone; 14th January 2017 at 16:39.
Sorry about the pictures the lighting is not good today
New spring arrived today, barrel looking much cleaner than before
Barrel and bridge back on the movement.
Ratchet wheel crown wheel and click fitted.
Gear train, lever and bridges fitted back on the movement
Winding and hand setting parts ready to be fitted again
All back together and re-cased, there is some very light spotting on the dial where the lacquer is starting to age but still in excellent condition.
This is how the watch was running yesterday when fully wound, +51 seconds a day and out of beat by a fair bit.
And the difference today when it is all back together (not too bad for a 50+ year old watch)
Just got to test it for a couple of days to make sure the power reserve is OK and that it keeps working in different positions and we should be good to go.
Fabulous post animalone, and great craftsmanship. Many thanks.
Brilliant post Ian. But why are you wearing hair bobbles on your fingers?!
Finger Johnnies
keeps my grubby paw prints off whatever I'm working on
Kirk is south Manchester. Anyone in north Manchester knows about how to keep your prints off things.
Excellent !
The end result...
is actually really hard to photograph as the dial is very reflective now it's clean!
It's a lovely looking watch - Ian did a superb restoration job; he comes recommended!
Posting Permissions
