Job Number 170076

I actually serviced this watch a few years ago. It now has a different owner, who was surprised to see the watch come up on my website when it needed a new mainspring.

This is an Elgin grade 130, 0 size, 15 jewels, made about 1897. 

See the entire album here.

Another problem with this watch is that the crown would not stay snapped in. This is a really common problem with early American wristwatches, for very good reason. I warn people when I am sent a watch with this problem that this issue is, shall we say, problematic.

First, I should point out that American watch companies did not make cases. Customers bought cases separately. Thus it is fair to say that all the early movements were pocketwatch movements. Some people bought wristwatch cases for them. And the small movements were all just scaled down versions of the larger designs.

In vintage American watches, the "snap" function and the winding stem and crown are part of the case, not the watch. This is called "negative setting". Negative setting uses a 2-position fingered spring sleeve in the neck of the case to put the watch in wind or set position.  The "snap" in/out of the crown is thus fully a function of the case. The advantage of the American negative setting system was that it allowed movements to be more mix and match with cases (again the watch companies didn't make cases).  The stem (part of the case, often hand made to work with a given movement) is a square post that sticks out from the case and into the watch movement. On a negative setting watch, the "default" position is setting - the spring pushes it that way. So out of the case, it is in setting mode.

A shoulder in the stem snaps over the fingers of the sleeve, in the neck of the case, pushes the stem in, and holds it in winding mode, against that spring.

Positive setting is the setting system you find in modern watches, and vintage Swiss movements.  On a positive set watch, the "default" position is winding and the snap action is built into the watch movement. The stem just passes though a hole, effectively, in the side of the case and the case has no part in winding/setting.

All that said... Pocketwatch cases have a long neck to support this design. Shrinking down the snap mechanism to fit in the edge of a wristwatch case is simply not practical. They don't work well. And if the sleeve breaks, which is very common on either case type, replacements are getting rare.

This watch luckily did not have a broken sleeve. It's sleeve is a tiny "wrap" of steel with a split. I squeezed it closed a little, and it will work. For awhile...

Is it "fixed"? Not really... This is as good as it was when it was new, and it will spread again, and again fail to stay snapped in. Or it will break. The design just isn't workable.

It's an antique. They don't 'em like this anymore (and there's good reasons for that).

Find more content about vintage watches here.