VIRTUAL POCKET WATCH MUSEUM DAY 54, Cal 24 Seeland

Moderator 3567 posts

14 May 2020, 5:21 p.m. 14 May 2020, 5:21 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.

DAY 54, cal 24 Seeland

Yesterday we had a beautiful calibre in a beautiful case, today is a bit if a
difference.

The next watch in the series a my cal 24 Seeland, in a silver case.

This is the type of watch that you not would look at when you saw it at a flee
market, it is smaller than the usual old IWC pocketwatchesn the dial is
unsigned, the silver case is nice, but not spectalular...But you would be
wrong to pass on a historical important watch .

These are rare finds , dating from the 1870's, a period that is a bit an
obscure period in the history of IWC, no records, discussions on the numbering
of the movement types...

But an interesting period and I do hope that the research is being done by
some people will result in a publication soon.

I found in the archives a very interesting post and I would like to copy here
the beginning of the post by David Boettcher :

"

IWC "Seeland" watches were made during the period when IWC was under the
control of of Frederic Frank Seeland, a US citizen who was appointed to manage
the IWC factory in October 1876, after the first company, founded by F.A.
Jones, had gone bankrupt. Dr. R. Grieshaber was president, and Johann
Rauschenbach was managing director. Initially all seemed to go well under
Seeland's management and he was left alone to run the business. Seeland
introduced watch calibres that were cheaper to make than the Jones calibres.
Profits apparently soared, and the workforce increased. But Seeland was faking
the profits by overstating the value of stock on hand. This came to light
during the summer of 1879 when Seeland with his family suddenly and secretly
left Schaffenhausen for America just before the stock take was due. A stock
take by Rauschenbach and the factory foreman revealed that the stock on hand
was worth a lot less than Seeland had stated the previous year, and the
company had actually been losing money and was faced with a substantial debt.
The IWC company went into bankruptcy for a second time, and Seeland was
sentenced in his absence to three weeks in prison.

Most of the IWC Seeland watches were sold in the UK, and their cases have UK
hallmarks."

The rest of the post can be found here

I am lucky to have 3 full plate Seelands in my collection, the other two will
be shown some time later in the series ( another cal 24 and a cal 25 )

I also have the cal 22, cal 23, but these could be qualified not as Seeland
movements, more on that later.