VIRTUAL POCKET WATCH MUSEUM DAY 42, cal 73, 12c case

Moderator 3567 posts

2 May 2020, 2:32 p.m. 2 May 2020, 2:32 p.m.

As some of you know, I am collecting pocketwatches, IWC only.

Far from saying that my collection is a museum collection but I am proud to
have found some nice and rare pieces over time.

Some of the pocketwatches are common, easy to find on the market, sometimes in
better condition than mine, but some I have are gems.

So in these crazy times, as the museum in Schaffhausen is closed, why not open
one here on the forum.

As long as the museum is closed, I will post here daily a pocketwatch from my
collection.

I hope I don't run out of pieces before the virus is beaten. Fingers crossed
for all of us.

I will post them in a random order, with some comments, feel free to join.

Keep safe all.

DAY42, cal 73, 12 corner case

Today a cal 73, again with a beautiful detailed case, nice dial, nice hands.

Some days ago in our virtual museum, I posted my cal 73 with silver octagonal
case to show that not all pocketwatches were round and that different shapes
were made by IWC.

A reply from Mark L. showed a pocketwatch with a dodecagonal case, pictures
that surprised me, I had seen that watch before.

You can read the post here .

Did Mark bought it on internet and I saw it there ? Were we bidding at the
same auction and knowing his pockets are deeper than mine, he got it ?

I looked into my files and realized that I had the same watch.

I contacted Mark to know the case and calibre numbers to see how far they were
apart. I already posted here that I found calibre nr 305 and 306, so another
coincidence could be in the make.

To our both surprise ,the case numbers : 8939xx and 9250xx, the calibr numbers
8711xx and 8947xx.

So both quite far from each other. According to the books, mine is from 1928,
the other from 1929, cases from 1929 and from 1931.

I wonder what the story behind this could be.

link

8541

Master 4484 posts

2 May 2020, 2:34 p.m. 2 May 2020, 2:34 p.m.

link

Not sure if Tonny is trying to play "the little boys game" here today, but to
be honest I prefer then the "big boys game" of poker !

So Tonny, indeed - I see you and raise you by one.

The Watch

So here we see the identical case as to Tonny's watch, with identical gold
hands as well. However, that's where I see him, and raise him on the dial.
This, becuase as you can see below in this top quality photo by William
Barker, my dial is gold finish compared to Tonny's plain white dial.

So indeed lets play spot the difference...

So while the appliques are clearly of the same type and font with only
marginal differences, take a look at
the suttle differences elsewhere on the dial.

Other than the dial color, did you spot the 4 differences.

At the 11 indice the two numeric ones are much closser to each other on my dial than those of Tonnys 11 indice (red circle)
At the 9 indice, on my dial the 9 applique is almost touching the hour marker - on Tonny's watch it is firther removed from the edge (green circle)
On my gold dial, the minute and hour markers are gold dots - on Tonny's they are silver dots, on the white dial (magenta circle)
On the seconds sub-dial on my watch the 10 second markers are less defined/bold, than on Tonny's dial (blue circle)

These are the small things that make Collectors happy to note, when looking at
these pocketwatches. So while based on the serial numbers we can assume that
some 32.126 pieces differentiat these two watches on the production line, and
the cases to exactly similar to not have been made by the same manufacturer
- the question arrises, if the dials were ordered by IWC from the same Swiss
watch cottage industry dial maker, or by another supplier? Further research is
needed.

Having seen these diference, for the rest other than the dail the watches are
both of the very highest quality finishing, and the movement finishing is
as one would expect out of Scaffhausen. By this time (1931) IWC had dropped
using on the mass volume production movements, those small blue 'd screws we
so love to see. Fortunately, their use by IWC on some of the movements, came
back later.

The detail of the case back engraving.....leaves me speachless. Such fine work
on a 14K gold case back.

As does the detail on the actual case - identical in all aspects to that of
Tonny's.

....and then suddenly one sees it!

So intricate and immacuately fine is the rose engine engraving (guiloche work)
on the case backs, that neither Tonny or I had noticed it before - however the
actual paterning on the case backs differes. Here (below) in an overlay, my
case back on the left with a wave patern and Tonny's on the right with a 3D
box patern.