VIRTUAL POCKET WATCH MUSEUM DAY 30, cal 57 black and gold

Adrian hits the nail on the head with his comment below, that these were
indeed very skilled craftsman who adorned the pocket watch cases with these
monograms and other fancy gold artwork.

Of course, these watches like Tonny shows today were typically the exclusive
domain of those wealthy enough to be able to afford a one of " made to
order " timepiece. Either, as watch for themselves or as a gift to
someone.
In those days, the only way to obtain such exclusivity was to order either
custom engraving on a silver of gold pocket watch or move to this type of
ornate case back art applied monogram or elaborate artwork.

But, what about the working-class man in the 1920 's ?

Those who neither could afford such an extravagance, nor the need. The
fellow who simply wanted / needed a
reliable, accurate watch to take to work with him every day. A watch that
was
not designed to impress, but rather be a tool watch. A so called "daily
beater" which had to endure the rigors of a workman's place of abode, as
opposed to impressing the upper society folk at the club, or spend the day in
a waistcoat pocket at the office?

The Watch

The timepiece I share with you today from my collection in order to complement
Tonny's beautiful and very ornate Lepine Cal. 57 is its sister movement namely
a Savonette Cal. 58 encased in a rather underdressed full hunter case.

a Cal 58 movement, As seen here below on the left.

IWC Schaffhausen shipped this watch on the 19th of August 1921 to Revello in
Montevideo, Uruguay.

Note: the lever set arm, protruding here from the side of the watch glass
bezel between the 4 nd 5 hour indices.

When looking at the outside of the case we see the watch is in a simple and
for those days pretty standard Rose Engine turned (guiloche) case.

The flip side, outside cover has a centralised cartouche area designed for
engraving of the owners intials. Interesting enough, we often see that these
working mans watches were rarely engraved on those shields - this as opposed
to the more ornate Nielo and gold cases where the owners typically did have
the watch engraved.

The movement, like Tonny's C. 57 is very plain and is not engraved.

Intersting thing about this case is that it is unlike most IWC silver cases on
that time, neither 0.800 or 0.900 German Silver, but raher 0.875 as seen here
above.

_Serial numbers removed (to protect the innocent) and please be advised that
this watch as you see it here, has yet to undergo a full service. It 's
waiting on Master Watchmaker Jeroen to find the time to get to work on it. _

What a technique of applying the monogram.

This hand work must have been very time consuming. I wonder how is is fixed on
the case, which is of course not a flat surface

Chapeau for the goldsmith who has crafted this.

Adrian,

(alwaysiwc).

Fascinating case and beautiful watch :o)

Adrian, the answer to your question is that the monegrams were mostly riveted
to the outside case back.

Above, you can see the rounded head of the monagram "legs" (similar to dial
legs) that were inserted through holes drilled through the case back and then
riveted on the inside.

I discovered this fact some years ago, when a watch turned up which clearly
had had a number of small holes in the case back silver soldered closed.