Elgin Grade 145

These are "before" images, the watch has not been fully disassembled. But there a couple interesting things to point out. First, this watch likely has it's original screws, and they are in good shape. One clue is that one of the screws has an unpolished head.

There are three plate screws on this watch. One of them sits down flush with the face of the upper plate, while the heads of the others stand up. This is because that flush screw is covered up by the barrel bridge when it is in place. That screw is supposed to be the unpolished one. But on this watch, the unpolished head is the next screw over - one that does shows. The screws are reversed.

My photos of the polished screw don't really show its shine, but the dull one is pretty clearly a plain steel finish even in these images.

Here is the whole train, well aside from the mainspring barrel anyway. And there's another interesting find.

The inner pin on the regulator has been replaced with one that is way too long. That is probably a dial foot pin, or just a replacement regulator pin that for some reason was not neatly trimmed down like it is supposed to be.

The two pins on the regulator arm are what cause the hairspring to be effectively longer or shorter as the regulator arm is moved. These pins should be just two tiny, parallel pins of brass. There's no reason what we find here wouldn't function, it's just rather untidy.

My Grandfather always said that you never know what you will find when you get into a watch.

See more of what I like to call "creative repairs" here.

The secondary serial number stamps on this one are prefixed with a sort side-ways delta like symbol. The full number is 7941863.

This watch is an Elgin grade 145, which is a little rare among Elgins. It is 18 size, 15 jewels, made about 1899.