Cheap watches, sorted parts, rabbit hole. or Love for unloved rabbits.

In the back of one of my drawers I keep a box of pin lever movements and part. Mostly because I found this costume watch which I wear at the Dickens Fair. This surprisingly gets noticed from time to time.

When I got this I cleaned it lubricated it and oiled it. For the past several decades this has been my weekend watch For November and December. My third favorite watch after my two omegas. It is probable though that what ever watch I am currently working on or wearing is a favorite.

I carefully hoarded other pin lever watches In the off chance I might need parts to fix this one should it stop working. So far I have been lucky and it has performed admirably.


More recently I got the EB Bettlach 8000 based Snoopy watch. As noted in the recent post relating to the proper Snoopy watch, I had sorted my loose spares by parts. I also found one complete EB 8800 movement, which I am using as a practice watch.

I was curios as to what movement was in the costume watch I use so much. Hoping that it was the same. This turned out to be a (BRAC) 52. I have quite a few of these as most of the pendant watches use this movement.

The weird thing is I have no EB 8800 base plates. None of my other junk watches seem to use this caliber. I decided to sort through the cheap watches and spares again to see if I had overlooked anything. An excuse to look for other parts such as a movement for my Enicar dial.

Often looking for one thing finds another. (Although I still wonder where the V72 set lever xxx flew off to? as did a spare Omega 671 crown.) One rabbit hole leads to the next then the next ...

Having found quite a few Bettlach bridges and plates, but no 8800 base plates. I decided to sort wheels into big wheels, small wheels, then the small wheels into brass toned and silver toned. Silver toned often used in the pin lever. This turned up even more EB 8800 spares. Still no other base plates. Found some other EB calibers. Including two twins which with another are high on the want to clean list. This caliber also has a black dialed cousin.


Other pin levers are marked with a <RL> which seems to be a maker called Rhonda. Nothing seems to be complete.

Interesting how many of these cheap watches come in a high grade of finish, even multiple jewel count. Yet they contain that maligned pin lever. Which is surprising robust. I suspect somewhere there may even be a pin lever tourbion out there somewhere.

Given that I have bothered to hoard these costume watches for a few decades, for a day like today. It seem strange that the base plates are missing for one of the calibers. Could be that some of the parts I sorted, then resorted by caliber over the week are used and replaced? That would then make this the proverbial junk drawer where vintage parts go. (Too bad these are mid grade from the 1960s. and not the stuff that is popular now.) I did have some rollex spares, but I sold them off years ago. I keep the Omega spares in a separate box. Chrono spares show up now and again.

Even if I did have the 8800 plates, there is an issue of the balance parts. There seems to be a lot of balance bridges in the sorted pile. Hairsprings were riveted on. This is the most likely part to be damaged. If balances can be isolated matching a spring is not at all practical. The old watchmakers like Henry Fried said they can be straightened and wrote a book about it. Those watchmakers did not have TV an internet to distract them.

I keep thinking if there might be some sort of tools that could help, Other than tweezers. Suspect it is all about the practice. I get good practice picking parts off the floor with tweezers.

What it really becomes is puzzle solving. Fitting parts together. The search. I notice I am falling into old patterns. To fix a watch, one often purchases another watch for parts. Then these become unsorted parts, which want to become sorted. How quickly one loses interest in the found part. It is the one that went missing which is the target.

Why do such things become a rabbit warren? I set out to fix a Landeron, but need a dial. While waiting for a dial. I decide to de-rust a Val72. While waiting for rust removers to work, I decide to clean the 'Snoopy' pin lever. Only to find I may have a dozen pin levers all sorted by part with not enough parts to complete just one. Why is it that the correct clickspring can never be found, even though there are many in the box of spares. What happened to the clickspring for the watch I am currently cleaning and want to re-assemble?

With a few exceptions, I never take apart a watch and leave it. Too easy to loose parts that way. So as far as I can remember these watches and parts came disassembled.

I seem to get distracted finding other watches, which have caught my fancy from time to time. This in turn does not stop the need to keep searching and refreshing auction sites to get more grist for the mill. For every watch I do seem to give away there, I seem to replace it with three more.

Then one chases after documentation. Which has become a bit easier as much is online now. Find a caliber number, enter it into an auction site like ebay, then one can see what the other parts should look like. Then it is back to the boxes of parts to sort through and look again, to see what else is overlooked only to get farther and farther away from the project at hand.

At least I have a lot of nice and interesting watches to look at. To dream about one day getting them back into running and wearable condition ...

I've seen the term "pin lever" for years, but never deduced what it means from discussion text.

I kinda get in the same boat and I'm new to all this. I took apart one, then another. And then 2 pocket watches. And then bought several lots of parts off eBay, so now I have junk drawers full of junk to learn on. Lol. I just ordered the last of the basic tools I need and oils ... Wow, those are super pricey and don't last long on the shelf. Guess I need to get better at all this really quickly.

We use wiki so you do not have to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin-pallet_escapement the fancy word for these is a Roskopf escapement. Actually I did not bother to read it till now myself.
Basically hard steel wire is used to replace the jewel stones. These are typically used in alarm clocks. Advantage is the production can be automated.
Such timekeepers also have loud tick sound. I think timex used a variation of such.

I guess the irony is that the rest of the watch is not than much less complex than the standard jeweled lever escapement. Especially from the repair point of veiw. For the most part these were not intended to be repaired. On the other hand the designs used are quite charming and appealing.

Until the watch is opened no one really knows what is inside.

Interestingly enough, one of the first movements I took apart was a Baumgartner 866, which turned out to be one of these Roskopf escapements after I realized it wasn't a "998" 😁.

https://17jewels.info/movements/b/baumgartner/baumgartner-866/

Still sitting here under wraps waiting for my oils so I can start putting it back together again. Thankfully I found a total breakdown, repair training guide on another forum.



The rest of the parts are under a glass bell waiting for D5 to closeup the mainspring barrel.

Back in the 90s when I first got into watches I used to buy old pocket watches that were not running to practice on. At one time I had quite the collection of Elgins, and Walthams I'd tinker with. Many of the ones I fixed I sold off years ago to fund other watches.

I have found the 17 jewel site to be most informative.
I remember your Baumgartner thread. Interesting that I had not noticed it was a Roskopf.
At least oFrei had the oils in stock, so I could drive over there and get them. I recently did an Esslinger order. The shipping is fairly fast. Sort of envy those in the UK with access to Cousins.
I was noticing one of the oils is for steel on steel. I was thinking that perhaps this is what the gunk on some of the parts is. There is sure a lot of friction rubbing on this style watch.

Esslinger was where I ended up with my oil purchase. Especially with the November bergeron sale, I needed some tools and it couldn't be a better time. I order some of those adhesive sticks and man are they pricey, esp since they were sold out of the cheap brand by the time my order was fulfilled. 8.99 for 5 vs 8.95 for 2 ... And then I read back to Archer's thread where he mentioned a cleaning pad. Ugh. Next time with a workbench pad or something.

I ended up with 9010, 9020, 9415, D-5, and HP 1300.