Waltham Colonial Premier

This is a later watch, Waltham Colonial, 1924 model. These are pretty refined designed made with "modern" machinery. They are noticeably "tighter" in tolerance than earlier watches.

Winding/setting mechanisms on many Walthams have a "shipper". There are two levers, a spring, and a round clamp. This design works well and sees low wear, but it does have a lot more parts than an Elgin (for example) design and takes a bit more time to assemble. Beginning watchmakers are not real fond of these because the spring has to be installed with great care, or it will easily fly to the other side of the room never to be seen again.

The click spring on this type of Waltham watch is another easy to lose part. The key to handling small parts though is really less than half practice. The dressing of the tip and inside faces of the tweezers is critical. Good tweezers are adjusted and resurfaced fairly frequently. In this work learning to do that is just as important as learning how a watch functions.

The Waltham Colonial R model is a no-frills watch, but they have a good reputation for reliability. These were made in then late '30s and into the '40s. This is the 17 jewel type.