Double Flee A

watch stuff

I spent today working on a watch. I oiled it and got the movement squared away. It's an old Jules Jurgensen, dating back about a hundred and thirty years. At the time it was made, it was the top of the line in terms of quality and brand recognition wordwide; the Patek Phillippe of its day.

The movement has been worked on by some heavy-handed individuals in the past, and it's been robbed of its original gold case and is now crammed into a brass bushing in a nickel case. Looking at it, it's probably not the kind of thing anyone would want to steal. I thought you'd like to see it so I went to find a picture of one, and when I did I about crapped in my Herman Miller. Take a look at the movement I have spent the last two days working on:

eBay: Triple Signed 18K JULES JURGENSEN Hunter Case Watch!!!! (item 5060624541 end time Dec-10-05 18:30:00 PST)

That case was made of gold and it's a good bet it got melted down at some point, but the watch is the same. Ways mine is worse: overall wear, somewhat serious. Somebody scratched the number seven in the bottom of the gold fitting for the cap jewel on the pallet bridge. People obviously were not being as careful working on it as they could have been, but this is a quality piece. The pivots locate themselves like a dream, the way high end watches do. All the wheels are very well-weighted.

Ways mine is actually better than this one: That crack in the porcelain dial isn't there on my watch. Also, my hands are far more ornate. If I ever get a good lens, I'll have to take a picture of it, but for now I think that covers it.

It's a cool watch. Every screw is handmade, meaning no screw fits into another screw's hole. That's kind of strange if you've never dealt with it before. The balance screws are gold, and the hairpsring is a tank. It has low amplitude, though, and no backlash, and I'm not sure anything can be done about that. I'm told that if a watch this old can be made to run, that's good enough.

It kind of blows me away that the one I have was actually made before this, is nicer, and it was the one that got its case taken. I would normally expect that the one I would have would be total crap next to the glittery sexy ebay one, but this time I got lucky.

posted by dale @ 6:45 PM