The few pictures I've seen show fancy American metal work
Hi you all, Looking back a 100-150 years, how do the American pockets and the Swiss stack up. With accuracy so desired, I can imagine these companies were eyeing each others work. The few pictures I've seen show fancy American metal work but which kept better time? An American Co. a Swiss Co. (Go Team OMEGA), or the...?
There may be other answers on this, but here’s how I see it. In the 19th century, the Swiss made a lot of watches, but mostly for domestic use. They were largely produced by the craft method, with specialists each producing a limited range of parts. These components were then assembled into finished watches by “finishers”. The Swiss were able to produce some very fine watches, but when they developed aspirations to take their product world wide, their production methods generally meant they could not produce good watches consistently, in quantity sufficient to build market share elsewhere in the world. At this time, American watchmakers had learned how to built the machinery that could fabricate consistent quality parts, enabling them to produce good watches for an expanding market, and the consistency of their parts fabrication enabled them to supply spare parts which consistently fitted. The Swiss took lessons from American makers, and American ideas (and possibly machinery) back to Switzerland, and very soon, the Swiss expanded their production to become a world power with machine made watches, rather than watches produced by the craft method. The best Swiss watches competed very well with the best American watches, but the decoration on some American watches is unrivalled IMO. Generally, American railroad watches were preferred in the US, but while Canada also gave priority to American railroad watches, Canadian railroads also accepted Swiss made, high grade watches for railroad use. i. e. Longines, Zenith, Brandt, Omega. Elaborate decoration on American movements may have had something to do with how retailers sold watches. Until the American makers commenced selling their watches, cased, in the store, a watch buyer would see uncased movements, and would choose a case, dial, and possibly hands, and the watch would be set up at the store. He would have to pay a lot more for highly precise timekeepers, so the best watches were adorned with “eye candy” to help justify the higher price. I have two Swiss railroad watches in my collection which perform as well as my best American ones. But they simply don’t compete in the decoration department. That’s how I see it.
Ball, 18-size, made for Ball by the Hamilton Watch Co. From the browsing I have done, the set up on the 18-size Ball Hamilton regulator is different to many (all?) 18-size Hamilton models. It appears as though you also are either missing the vernier screw that moves the regulator, or the head might be broken off the screw. In your search for parts, it might be helpful if you searched.for Ball/Hamilton parts.
the best watches were adorned with “eye candy” to help justify the higher price
Omega Precision
In contrast to the decoration of American movements (as described above by Canuck,), the highest performing Omega movements were not decorated.
The most successful was the 47.4 NN L bull from 1919, which (to quote AJTT) ‘won world records in precision in all categories in 1933 and 1936’.
As we see, the movement was simplicity itself (and this watch was available for purchase by the public).
Even more ‘reserved’ was the 60.8 chronometer from 1925 - which was intended exclusively for precision competitions. Again to quote AJTT, reference is made to German author Hans-Jochen Kummer who described it as ‘shining with modesty’.
I can’t meet the quality of the beautiful images produced by Steve G in his Ninanet website but can strongly recommend the following:
http://ninanet.net/watches/others15/Mediums/momega60.html
Steve describes this movement as being the ‘antithesis of decorative design’.
