An Imperial Germany hallmark in a Swiss PW?

The Grouse (Coq de Bruyère) at 12 is the Swiss hallmark for Silver and the Crown and Half moon at 3 is the Imperial Germany hallmark for Silver as well. Why both? Anyone knows? Thanks in advance.
This particular PW was sold to Sweden in 1895.

German Gold and Silver hallmarks 1886

Very Interesting Tony, but I do not know why? >>>

My guess might be it was part of a order purchased by the Swedish government for official use, and so the crown and half moon are indicating that the watch has passed some standard.
--
Cheers from Isobars.

Interesting and disappointing...

Either no one knows, or no one cares. Richard (Isobars) speculated and Roberto (flyrobyfly36) emailed me with an educated guess. Thanks to both,
And I had actually believed this would be an interesting theme where European history touches horology. I guess I was wrong. Oh well, it is not the first time, and it won't be the last to be sure.
Perhaps this issue would have been better addressed in the German language forum. Unfortunately my German skills allow me only to order "bier and potato salad".

I meant to write...

Bier und Kartoffelsalat. ,-))

You can just try

and ask something like "Kennt jemand diese Silbermarken?" (Does anybody know these silver marks). The question may be a bit off, but you certainly will get an answer. There are quite some lovers of pocket watches there, partly from the Netherlands and Belgium, that know very much about these things. There is even a regular topic called "Sehnsucht ... nach IWC TU (= Taschenuhren)" (Yearning for IWC pocket watches) where beautiful pictures are shown, with a nice explanation: try Google translate and you may know what is going on. Success!

Kind regards,
Paul, wearing yellow gold Portuguese Perpetual Calendar

Why not a German Hallmark in a watch ....

sold to Sweden.

Silver watches normally were not built to order, but produced to and sold from stock (Only Stauffer of London had movement marked Peerless instead of IWC and the cases marked CN. So all Stauffer watches were built to order. But according to the case No. of your watch these Stauffer orders occured some years later for the first time).

As most IWC watches were sold in Switzerland, Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire, watches produced on stock were hallmarked that way.

I own several watches sold to Denmark and Sweden. None bears a Denish or Swedish hallmark, but Swiss or German ones.

Regards

Thomas Koenig

My comment obviously sounds more...

abrupt than I intended it to sound. I did not mean to offended anybody.

Thank you. I was surprised to see...

Swiss and German hallmarks in the same case. I was under the impression the country of origin hallmarked the object and that was it. Obviously not. Thanks again.

Although this reply is somewhat late, if you are still interested, here is the answer to your question. You almost need to be a lawyer rather than a watchmaker to discover the answer.

In your question you are dealing with Swiss and German hallmarks. More frequently you will come across Swiss and English hallmarks together. The possibility of encountering dual hallmarks is greatest prior to 1973. Prior to 1973, there was no common scheme of hallmarking in existence in Europe.

Generally speaking, the several nations of Europe had their own hallmarking laws and in many case, those laws generally required that precious metal objects (wrist watches and other things) were required to carry the hallmarks of the country in which they were to be sold. Recall that hallmarks are a form of consumer protection, so to speak. Switzerland required (and still requires) that all precious metal watch cases, either made in, or imported into Switzerland, carry Swiss hallmarks. In a similar fashion, the English also required all precious metal objects in commerce in their Islands to bear English hallmarks. One would not be going too far out on a limb to presume the same was true in German, among other nations. The importer (producer or sponsor) had to pay a fee each time the item was assayed/hallmarked. The Germans (French, Italians and Spanish) more or less gave up the strict requirements of importation hallmarks some time ago. After 1973 an International Treaty was convened which allows items hallmarked in a subscribing nation's hallmarking systems to pass freely in commerce among member states without the need for re-assaying or re-hallmarking with associated fees (although the fee are modest). Its membership is always expanding. I trust this response is sufficient. If you want to see a compilation of the old European laws they were collected by Victor Duband, Les ouvrages d'or et d'argent: Législation française et etrangère sur le titre des ouvrages in French. A copy of this 1909 book (in French) is with NAWCC in Columbia, PA.