Movements and Ebauches

It seems that once they entered the wristwatch era, around WWI, West End ceased to make their own movements. In fact it's not entirely clear that they did even before this but it is hard to identify aged pocket watch movements with any confidence.

It seems that WE have used only a few ebauche suppliers since WWI, perhaps as few as two. Watches from then to about the late 1930s mainly seem to use Revue movements, or at least movements strongly resembling on Revue ones. However these are signed only by WE and documentation about Revue movements is sparse so this is hard to confirm. Many of the late pocket watches also appear to use these movements.

Around WWII they seemed to have switched to using FHF movements. FHF movements seem to be standard until about the 1970s, after which ETA ones are used. I think around this time FHF merged with ETA which would explain the change.

Perhaps this change of internals coincides with the change in serial numbers? certainly it's around the late 1930s that they seemed to stop putting sequential numbers on the cases, though there are plenty of examples of watches with the double 4 digit number before this and many in fact with both. It's certainly not clear cut.

Additionally in the 1940s Longines movements appear to have been used for a time. I understand this was something to do with a ban on foreign imports into India so may actually have been at Longines behest in order to be able to continue sales there?

Sunburst Green Sowar

 Though not my favourite dial this is a nice well running watch in good condition. This is 1960/70s I think and I would guess made for the middle east market.

Another FHF movement (372 I think), this watch hasn't seen much wear and the cuvette has kept it clean inside. I don't know if the placing of smaller movements inside large cases is a common practice but most West End Watches of this era seem to do this

Looks like it's probably been serviced recently, it has a brand new strap on it (I probably paid less than the strap cost for it), though it does have at least one bridge screw missing

The non-quick set date demonstrates very clearly to me why they invented quick set...

Note no "PRIMA" on the dial (probably not enough room).

A teeny tiny Sowar Prima

This watch I bought for my wife. I've not put any scale in the pictures so it's hard to tell but it is less that half of any of my other watches in diameter (~19mm, 8 3/4" apparently). The second hand is so small it's hard to make it out with the naked eye.

I've done no more than take the back off this and haven't needed to. I don't know if it's been serviced recently but it's keeping good time and running fine (there is a note that says it had it's stem replaced in 1999). The strap even looks original (though definitely needs replacing). I haven't identified the movement yet but I suspect it's some kind of late 30s/40s FHF.

The green between 10 and 12 o'clock in the first picture is not an illusion. It's copper corrosion in the paint. Not a lot I can do about it unfortunately. You can see a bit more on the case in the second pic. I suspect it's got wet at some point.

It is of the same style as the "CSI" Sowars, but has not been stamped as such. It does have "Brit Pat. 386 505" inside the caseback, which is a bit different and according to the patent office was registered in May 1932 by Taubert et Fils: "Improvements in Fluid Tight watches". Not completely fluid tight judging by the verdigris...

Note the slightly different numbers stamped on the different sides of the caseback.

And now for something completely different...

It's a jump hour watch! Popular in the seventies I'm told, but seeing a mechanical one these days is pretty rare. It has a FHF 72 movement, with the requisite bits added for the jumping hour wheel. I can't find another example of this on the internet.

Another ebay bargain(ish), this one wasn't working when I received it and quick look inside showed that it's not been well treated in it's lifetime. The immediate problem was that the screw holding the jump-hour wheel was not only the wrong size but had been cross-threaded. However many other screws were wrong, one to the extent that it was also probably stopping the hour wheel moving properly, and two jewel caps (albeit unnecessary ones) had been removed.

I've replaced the offending screws and cleaned and oiled it and it now works ok. Not brilliantly: it seems it is very susceptible to small knocks that make the hour wheel jump and it also occasionally gets stuck between numbers, but that is probably just wear. Looking at the design of the jump hour mechanism I suspect it was never great. It looks very flimsy. The paint on the dials is flaking and dirty, and unlikely to be replaceable. It does look very different on the wrist though.

The bridges were very tarnished and I experimentally polished them with yellow Dialux. They came out very nicely but the Dremel I have is far too powerful for the job. The pieces heated up with in seconds to skin burning temperature.

Yes, it does have a very silly crown on it.

Another Sillidar...

So, after thinking that my original Sillidar was some kind of assemblage, a couple of months later this watch came up on eBay. The pictures were terrible so no interest and I won with a single very low bid (less than £10 IIRC). I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to receive, other than a cheap West End watch, so I was somewhat surprised to open the package and see it was almost identical to my first Sillidar.

Clearly the dial is a different style to the first and it has a different crown but in all other respects it is identical. The serial number however is over 100,000 higher, so presumably quite a bit later.

I don't know at what point plastic glasses began to be used but the one fitted here very closely matches the curve of the case so I'd like to think that it may be the original.

I actually prefer this dial to my other one and it keeps very good time, even without servicing, but it really needs a new glass and the lume in the numbers is very much worse for wear.

The case is again some alloy I can't identify but there is quite a lot more of the original surface left than on the other. It looks very much like gilt.

This crown is ridiculously fiddly to wind. It looks slightly better than the other version but it no where near as practical. I don't know if it's original or not, but I have seen other watches about this age with this slim style.

Update 15/08/2012 -  I took this apart to clean it. Unfortunately it's been used as a practice piece I think and the movement is covered in scratches and full of gunk. For reasons I can't see the teeth in one quarter of the centre wheel are very worn. Perhaps something was stuck in there once? One of the banking pins is also bent. It's amazing it's keeping as good a time as it is!

Update 6/09/2012 - Cleaned, re-glassed and re-lumed. The lume on the dial must have been printed on. As soon as I can work out a way to do that I will.

Update 10/04/2014 - I recently acquired a watch timing machine and properly adjusted this watch. More by luck than judgement I'm sure but it now keeps time to within a few seconds a week being worn daily. I am astonished that a watch that is nearly 100 years old and (as far as I know) has had no major work carried out on it is capable of such accuracy and consistency. This movement is noticeably better finished than most of the watches I own, eg the winding wheels are polished to a mirror finish and the whole movement is gilted, so I assume this is one of the higher end models of the period. I'm very impressed.

A Matchless Trench Watch

Quite by chance, very soon after I started wondering about the age of my first watch, this one came up on ebay and attracted very little attention so I managed to get it very cheap. (Apologies for the poor quality photos, I've lost my tripod, I will take better ones when I get a new one).

 Although it's a Matchless model, it has an otherwise almost identical dial but without the sub-seconds ground out. The movement is very similar too but finished to a lower quality (I believe these are Revue movements). The style of the case would suggest at first glance that this is earlier than the first watch, yet the serial number is nearly 40,000 later. (The caseback has the serial inside and also the two four digit numbers on the outside).

 The glass appears to the original very thick flat mineral glass, something that seems to be specific to West End Watches. There are quite a few scratches in the surface but the glass is so thick that they could very easily be ground out and still have plenty to spare. Perhaps that is by design. I think this is the original crown too.

This particular watch consistently runs 10-15 minutes too fast. At first I thought the cause of this was that the hairspring was twisted so that it hit the centre wheel when it rotated one way. However twisting it slightly to fix this, and a thorough cleaning etc, does not seem to have made much difference. I suspect now that unfortunately the hairspring is a little short.

The difference in aging between the stainless back and the rest of the case, (made of some alloy I can't identify that was probably chromed) is very apparent. I imagine the back looks pretty much the same as it did the day it came out of the press.

Update 6/08/2012: After much fiddling, I've managed to lengthen the hairspring using the excess and it's now back into the realms of the reasonable timekeeping. I've probably managed to mangle the spring into a less than ideal state, but it's better than being 20 minutes a day fast. Opening this one up again it struck me what a beautiful movement this watch has and how good a condition the dial and hands are in.

The First Watch

The first watch, and the one that started it all, is also the watch I wear daily...

It's a Sillidar wristwatch, (nicely serviced by Ryte Time watches) with no features more fancy than a sub-second dial. It just tells the time. It cost me about £15 on ebay.

Serial number: 3390261

It has engraved (actually more scratched) on the back, above the serial number: J.G.L 31-5-1945 (a couple of weeks after VE Day). Inside the caseback is stamped "W6225B" (and of course "EVERBRIGHT STEEL BACK"). The movement is sign with the W inside a 6 pointed star inside a double circle. Somewhat surprisingly for a watch this age there are no servicing marks.

At first glance this would seem to date it quite accurately, but some of the features make me think it's perhaps a quite a bit earlier than this.

First of all the inscription is really rough and appears just scratched in. If you'd just bought a brand new (fairly pricey) watch you would at least pay a little extra to get the jeweler to engrave it properly, not scratch it in with a nail when you got home.

Second, it doesn't have Incabloc shock protection. One of West End's claims to fame is that they were the first company to put Incabloc into mass production, and this happened in the late 1930's. The Sillidar was (I think) one of their higher end models and you would have thought more likely to get the better features sooner.

Thirdly: there is no jewel count marked on the dial. It's 15 jewels (or less, I've not taken it apart). A watch of 1945 vintage should have had at least 17 jewels.

Lastly, it has a proper enamel dial. From what I can find these had almost died out by WWII, being too time consuming to produce. However somewhat bizarrely, if you look carefully at the pictures above, you can see that the sub-second dial has been ground out (a common practice to give enough clearance above the second hand) over an existing sub second dial that was apparently slightly off centre. Given this I began to think it was probably an assemblage of some kind and the dial did not belong to this movement, with the sub seconds added afterwards. However on reflection that doesn't make much sense either: it's clearly a West End dial on a West End movement of about the same age, and the figures on the sub-second dial are baked into the enamel with everything else so it was clearly done deliberately at production time. Weird. Perhaps they were using up old dials that were meant to go on slightly different calibres? Perhaps it's a one off? What we really need are more examples...

Anyway, my educated guess then is around about late 1920s - early 30s. However, I'm not very confident in this, hence this whole project!

Update 15/8/2012 - I notice this is the only watch I've seen to have a suffix on it's "case number". I wonder if "B" is B quality. Might explain the sub-second dial.