IWC Cal. 55.

Among the three quarter movements made by IWC , cal.52/53 was without doubt the most successfull one for pocket watches. Probably the second best sold was cal 57/58.
It is interesting to note that from 1880-1900, IWC developed a fairly number of three quarter movements as fore runners and after runners, all with the goal to improve and standardise a nearly perfect and reliable machine made pocket watch. Many of these calbers have been dicussed here. Recently Ralph Ehrismann showed the cal. 54. IWC also made cal 55, which was sold from1889-1895.....

Caliber 55 was only made in 18 lignes, making it a relatively small pocket watch in diameter. The typical difference with cal. 52/53 is the lacking of a separate bridge (cock) that fixes the escape wheel. The escape wheel is fixed in the three quarter plate, by enlarging the plate. One can see the escape wheel just below the IWC stamp on the movement....

.....For reasons we will probably never know, IWC decided to stop the production of cal. 55 already in 1895. Nevertheless, for pocket watch freaks, cal 55 is one of the interesting historical developments....
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

Hi Michael and Tonny,
Your question is difficult to answer as I have not the details from the Archives. If one takes as a reference the books of Meis and of Tölke and King, one can conclude that cal. 55 was launched in 1888. During the same year the first cal 52/53 movements came out, hallmarked as cal. 1WC 18 ligne and Cal. IWC, 19 ligne. So one could say that cal. 52, 53 and 55 came out during the same year, not telling anything about the consecutive order. But there is more. Some watch type movements were used twice by IWC.
There is an "old" identification system for the Lépine watch cal 55 (as I have shown) and its sister cal. 58, which is the hunter mirror version.
Than there is the "new" nomenclature for cal 57, representing a Lépine watch and cal. 58, being the hunter version. Fortunately, Tonny Berteloot shows this watch from the new nomenclature in this thread.
That all does not answer Michael's question. Maybe the following information will help a bit.
The modern calibers, have been launched during the following years:
Cal. 67 1933
Cal. 95 1927
Cal. 97 1930
Cal. 98 1936
This means that cal 67 came after Cal. 95 and 97 but before Cal. 98.
To make the confusion complete, I have to tell you that there was also a cal. 67 in the old nomenclature. In this system cal. 67 was a 12,5 ligne Pocket watch for ladies. It was produced only in 1893 in 2 series of 300 watches each ( information from Friedrich Wagener). These 600 watches do now make the research of IWC's history "interesting". But at the same time very confusing and therefore only relevant for a few freaks.
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

The c55. is a simpler version of the small 18" lig c.IWC (the c.54).

The bridge-shape was later the modified a bit and gave the shape of the c.62 (IWC's "cal Glashütte").

I will add some pictures of the modified version, (when I got the watch out of the save).

Here an other early c.55 (Cal Schaffhausen)

As promised, I could organize a C.55 meeting for a photo session.

What you can see, the caliber got once a new shape (similar to Glasshütte watches) of the 3/4 bridge together with the (Glashütte like) small screw on the winding wheels. Up to now I have never seen up to now, the old shaped bridge with the new winding system, or the new bridge shape with the new winding wheels.

Most I like the decorated nickel silver watches.

best regards

Ralph

P.S.: There is a guest on the picture of a differernt caliber type.

Hello Ralph,
Your input is extremely important an appreciated as always.
On the picture where you show 5 pw's, I guess the most right one on the lower row is no IWC.
Am I right?
Grüsse,
Adrian.

Hello Adrian

You are 77% right. It ist the PW at the bottom right.
But it is an IWC, a Caliber 62 (IWC internally, that time, also called "Cal. Glashütte")

;-) Remeber my 1st of entry:
The Time, when IWC built "Replicas".

Regards

Ralph

Once again, I need to borrow some words of my good friend Antonio....

I'm always amazed to get to know, what I did not know!

Superb knowledge share Adrian and Ralph.

Hallo Ralph
Grüsse aus Belgien.
I am fascinated by your report on the cal. 55 and even more on the cal 62.
As a matter of fact I am not so impressed with what happened at the watch scene more than a century ago. I think you agree that every manufacture looked to what was developped by Japy, Glashütte, Waltham, Elgin and others. It was the time to decide in which the direction a watch company had to go, to ensure survival. And it is logical to assume that copying promising watches might improve selling.
However, what is very special are the detailed developments inside IWC as you show them to us. Your information is not provided in the classic books written by Meis and Toelke and King. Do you know whether cal. 62 ever was sold? I believe 300 Lépine watches and 300 Savonette (hunters ) were made in 1891,
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

Hello Adrian

The production number of the c61/62 was a bit higher. 1500 Lepine (open face) and 1500 Savonettes (Hunter). Most of them where sold to Heilbronner (Unitas) and are also marked "Unitas".
But you may be right with the about 300, for those which where not sold to Heilbronner and are (most probable) not marked "Unitas".

Regards

Ralph

What a fantastic find, huge congrats Mark on this important addition to your amazing collection! And thank you for reviving this thread, very informative and I am able to appreciate it much more now than I did then!