Calling all Pocket Watch Buffs

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I spent several hours on my Hamilton 992, today. I cleaned it a week ago, and found it was losing as the cannon pinion was slipping. I tightened the cannon pinion. Otherwise, i wasn’t totally happy with the time keeping. So I had time today to look at it again. I noticed that the balance wheel pivots seemed loose in their hole jewels, so I decided to replace the balance staff. I had one on hand, so I fitted it. I found the bottom pivot to be tight in its jewel. Several trips to the lathe to burnish the pivot size down a bit. Was the problem pivot size or hole jewel hole size? Dunno! Anyway, fine now. Will it keep railroad standard time? Time will tell.

The above post was from several days ago. The 992 has settled in quite nicely, and should be running within about 30-seconds per week. This watch was my watchmaker father’s bench chronometer for all the years I can remember. He’s been dead for nigh on 50 years. I had a chance to acquire a nicer movement for it, so this upgraded movement is in it now. The dial faces up fairly well with the bezel on, but the bezel hides quite a few chips in the enamel. It will have a proud place amongst my 50-odd other pocket watches, mostly of railroad standard.
 
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@Canuck kindly gave me some interesting information on my great grandmother’s pocket watch on the previous page which spurred me on to go through some old family stuff and dig out this ’Klaftenberger’ pocket watch owned by my great grandfather. Not a manufacturer I’ve heard of before but they claim to have been watchmakers to the Queen.
 
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The Klaftenberger name is most likely the name of a retail jeweller in England. And almost certainly not the dude who made the watch. The watch (in my opinion) is Swiss made. You don’t show a picture of the mechanism, but I’m certain I am correct. The tell is that this watch has what is known as a “pin-set” feature. That is the small button on the case edge near the winding crown. When that button is pressed inward and the crown turned, the hands can be adjusted. Swiss watch manufacturers used pin setting more than anyone else. I am unable to read the stampings inside the case back, but I can see the numeral 18 which could indicate a case of 18-karat gold. I doubt the case was Swiss made. Had it been Swiss, the stamping would almost certainly be .750, the decimal equivalent of 18 karat. A better picture inside the case back may well indicate more. As to the royal warrant, this retailer paid dearly for that, and I doubt very much that he actually made watches for royalty. I think I see a date from 1888 inside the case back. The watch appears to be in excellent condition for a 137 year old watch. The case is a hunter style, and the watch is equipped with a hunter case hour hand, enabling the time to be read with the cover closed. The numerals and minutes chapter ring are of vitreous enamel, and the enamel appears to be intact. Dial is also vitreous enamel with black vitreous enamel Roman numerals and minutes chapter ring. Typically, a lot of English watches of the era do not have a maker or retailer name on the dial.
 
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The Klaftenberger name is most likely the name of a retail jeweller in England. And almost certainly not the dude who made the watch. The watch (in my opinion) is Swiss made. You don’t show a picture of the mechanism, but I’m certain I am correct. The tell is that this watch has what is known as a “pin-set” feature. That is the small button on the case edge near the winding crown. When that button is pressed inward and the crown turned, the hands can be adjusted. Swiss watch manufacturers used pin setting more than anyone else. I am unable to read the stampings inside the case back, but I can see the numeral 18 which could indicate a case of 18-karat gold. I doubt the case was Swiss made. Had it been Swiss, the stamping would almost certainly be .750, the decimal equivalent of 18 karat. A better picture inside the case back may well indicate more. As to the royal warrant, this retailer paid dearly for that, and I doubt very much that he actually made watches for royalty. I think I see a date from 1888 inside the case back. The watch appears to be in excellent condition for a 137 year old watch. The case is a hunter style, and the watch is equipped with a hunter case hour hand, enabling the time to be read with the cover closed. The numerals and minutes chapter ring are of vitreous enamel, and the enamel appears to be intact. Dial is also vitreous enamel with black vitreous enamel Roman numerals and minutes chapter ring. Typically, a lot of English watches of the era do not have a maker or retailer name on the dial.
Thank you very much, it’s great to learn more about it. It does say ‘Swiss Manufacture’ on the case, but wether that relates to the case and movement or just the movement I wouldn’t know. I suppose it’s monetary value is in the gold rather than any horological value?
 
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Thank you very much, it’s great to learn more about it. It does say ‘Swiss Manufacture’ on the case, but wether that relates to the case and movement or just the movement I wouldn’t know. I suppose it’s monetary value is in the gold rather than any horological value?
Can you show us the movement?
 
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Can you show us the movement?
Yes, but not for a few weeks now. Thank you…
 
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Good old Canuck. Today he helped me get an old clock back in sequence. It was striking the hours at the « 6 » mark and the half hour at the « 12 ».

Fixed despite being thousands of kms away. (3200 kms).

So now he’s done two pocket watches for me, and three or four watches, plus a clock.

I will be needing new brakes soon… bet he can do that too.

The clock. Back in sequence.
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Interesting decoration on that piece........ The dude for some strange reason is holding up a duck with one hand and cradling something that looks like an elaborate hacksaw cradled in the other.
Whatever he is up to has the woman clutching at her pearls! 🤣
 
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Interesting decoration on that piece........ The dude for some strange reason is holding up a duck with one hand and cradling something that looks like an elaborate hacksaw cradled in the other.
Whatever he is up to has the woman clutching at her pearls! 🤣

Pastorduck? Pastorhacksaw?
 
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Good old Canuck. Today he helped me get an old clock back in sequence. It was striking the hours at the « 6 » mark and the half hour at the « 12 ».

Fixed despite being thousands of kms away. (3200 kms).

So now he’s done two pocket watches for me, and three or four watches, plus a clock.

I will be needing new brakes soon… bet he can do that too.

The clock. Back in sequence.
This clock has a system controlling the striking called “count wheel” striking. The problem @Duracuir1 described is typical of this striking system. If the striking quits from having run down, but the time continues to run, when the clock is wound again, the striking will continue on where it left off……….out of sequence. Not a difficult problem to solve when you know clocks as I do. Solving this problem is easy to do, but it is a challenge to tell someone how to do when writing instructions as I had to. Well done @Duracuir1 . By the way, this clock is likely circa 1850-1875 when the French were using count wheel striking. By the last few years of the 19th century, their clocks were using “rack-and-snail” striking. Clocks using this system will self correct after the sequence is thrown off, and after the clock is rewound.

By the way, my mechanic and I have an agreement. I won’t fix cars if he won’t fix clocks! I don’t do brakes.
 
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Interesting decoration on that piece........ The dude for some strange reason is holding up a duck with one hand and cradling something that looks like an elaborate hacksaw cradled in the other.
Whatever he is up to has the woman clutching at her pearls! 🤣
She’s saying! “Pour moi? Merci bien”.
 
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Interesting decoration on that piece........ The dude for some strange reason is holding up a duck with one hand and cradling something that looks like an elaborate hacksaw cradled in the other.
Whatever he is up to has the woman clutching at her pearls! 🤣
I looked at the “hacksaw” again the morning, and it is clear to me this is NOT a hacksaw. The guy holding the duck is an ARCHER! And the hacksaw is his BOW! Stylized quite a bit, but indeed a BOW as used in archery. Check out the image of an 18th century French archery bow.

 
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I looked at the “hacksaw” again the morning, and it is clear to me this is NOT a hacksaw. The guy holding the duck is an ARCHER! And the hacksaw is his BOW! Stylized quite a bit, but indeed a BOW as used in archery. Check out the image of an 18th century French archery bow.

That bloke looks like he's wrestling a bloody great snake! 🤣
 
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I looked at the “hacksaw” again the morning, and it is clear to me this is NOT a hacksaw. The guy holding the duck is an ARCHER! And the hacksaw is his BOW! Stylized quite a bit, but indeed a BOW as used in archery. Check out the image of an 18th century French archery bow.


Many of these images atop these clocks can be traced back to either Greek or Roman legends or even tales such as those of the brothers Grimm.
 
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Suddenly, this forum has sort of lost its focus on pocket watches. So, to return to the topic of pocket watches, I have been monitoring my recently resurrected Hamilton 992 to try to bring it close to railroad standards. It is running well, but regulating it has not met with the results I wanted. I had checked the balance wheel for poise during conditioning, and that was fine. I did find it was slightly magnetized, so I tended to that. Still not good enough!

So today, I checked the blued steel Breguet hairspring for concentricity by removing it from the balance wheel and fitting the hairspring to the balance cock. Looking through the centre of the hole in the hairspring collet, I could see that the hairspring was approximately 0.20 mm off centre. To illustrate my meaning, I have shown a similar situation that I discovered with a Hamilton 992B some years ago. This illustrated lack of concentricity can make rating a watch virtually impossible. If you can’t rate it, you can’t regulate it! So I have continued in my quest to bring it to railroad standard accuracy.
 
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If only that watch could talk, what a story it could tell!
A rare gilded Williamson from 1772, tortoise Shell , in Working conditions 😍

 
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Today, I'm wearing my circa 1897 Illinois Model 6, Grade 61 'Lakeside.' It has 17 jewels and was RR grade for the day, despite having a couple of features that would automatically diaqualify it as such only a couple of years later.

The dameskeening is hard to photo on this one, so you get treated to two photos of the mov't.
 
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https://pocketwatchdatabase.com/search/result/illinois/1357656

I noticed that @Waltesefalcon has uploaded a picture of this handsome watch to the pocketwatchdatabase site. I continue to be astonished that a 128 year old watch can survive in this condition. It probably has to do with the fact that wrist watches supplanted pocket watches as the watch of choice, 100 years or so ago. Meaning that the watches we love were retired to the sock drawer, many decades ago. Those of us that cherish these beauties can thank those who succumbed to the dictates of fashion over the decades.
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