A customer picked up their repaired clock, today. The brought a family watch, an 1883 model Waltham P S Bartlett, 17-jewels, gold filled case. The watch doesn’t run. Aside from the watch, they brought a copy of the original receipt. I though this might be of interest.
Purchase price in St. John’s Newfoundland (Canada) in March of 1901 was $27.00!
I’d like to know more about how Canadian import duties on Swiss watches were, as compared to Canadian import duties on American made watches, around the turn of the 20th century. American made watch movements often came into Canada without cases, the movements then to be fitted to cases made in Canada. That would have made a difference to applicable duties on U S watches. Duties on Swiss watches (I understand) were based on the number of jewels, and the number of adjustments. The Swiss makers (many of them) countered import duties on their products by producing a plainer product than the U S product, and making them in a way to cut costs.
Back to the Waltham I uploaded (above), that sold for $27.00 in St. John’s Newfoundland in 1903. Prices advertised by Ellis in Toronto in 1913 were not really much higher.
Fast forward to the early 1990s when I had some personal experience on U S duties applied to watches shipped from Canada to the U S. Duties differed based on karat of gold cases, karat of gold filled cases, steel cases, chrome cases, watches with straps, watches with karat gold bracelets, gold filled bracelets, number of jewels, electronic, manual wind, automatic wind, source country, water resistance rating, plastic, glass, or sapphire crystals, etc. etc. All very complex!
Let's start with the Zenith Extra Prima. For this, I am using French Forum A Montres and Manfred Rössler's Zenith book as primary sources.
It's the other way around. My watch has the ball / moon. And every other similar watch that I find doesn't have it.
Not that I mind it there. And now that you mentioned it, I guess I could always chop the end off 😅 - I won't of course.
Another oddity in the world of watches. Have you ever heard of an “aluminum watch?” There is such a thing!
In the heyday of pocket watches, the Aluminum Company of America approached no less a watchmaking firm than Vacheron & Constantine to produce a series of pocket watches on which the watch case was made of aluminum.
Wait a minute, you say! Aluminum? Napoleon III, President of France served his honoured guests lavish dinners on aluminum plates. His rank and file guests were stuck with dishes made of gold and silver. Today, we think of aluminum as recycled pop cans. But at one time in its history, aluminum was revered as much as the noble metals.
Even in the era of the Vacheron & Constantine aluminum watch, aluminum held a much more prestigious role in society, than it does today. The cheapest of cheap watches today, often have cases made of aluminum. The watch:
I have some ideas on how to display the movements,
The current stands you have would be OK for display, but you'd need to keep them in a cabinet or cover to stop dust etc.
And even if you have a movement with a broken "unobtanium part or parts", they are still beautiful artefacts to look at and marvel at the workmanship.
