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 64, Sch utzenuhr 1979, Luzern, part 2.
For this series, I look around in the forum archives, read the well known
books, do some research on the internet and there I found a post on a Swiss
watchforum where Christian (u2112) wrote a nice story about these watches "
the watch that saved Schaffhausen". Christian was so kind to give me
permission to quote the story here, but asked me to publish this disclaimer :
"P.S.: As a small disclaimer, all factual mistakes (if there are any) are of
course at my expense, as well as any exaggerations in terms of content. Mr.
Sporing would never even begin to claim that he saved IWC at the time, that's
my interpretation of events - but in my opinion very close to reality..."
So in short , here is the story : A Luzern watchmaker, Jorg Sporing, made an
order of 50 IWC pocketwatches for the occasion of 800 years city of Luzern (
more on that watch later in the series ) That project was successful for him
and for the 1979 Schutzenfesten, he made a big order for more than 1000
Schutzenuhren.
The artist Hans Erni made the design, the covers in silver and gold were
stamped at the Eidgenossischen Munzstatte in Bern, and shipped to IWC to be
assembled .
Knowing that the times ( quartz crises ) were very hard for the watch
manufacturers , this was a considerable risk: Because the shells and the
movements were essentially pre-financed by the Lucerne watchmaker - and he was
worried that IWC would have to close the doors before the completion and that
everything would be lost due to bankruptcy. It went well - but just so: Years
later, the then finance manager (and later IWC boss) Otto Heller admitted that
it was so close that it would have been over without this order. The volume
corresponded approximately to a monthly salary for the workforce, which had
already shrunk considerably at the time - and so the money from this project
was decisive in order to get the IWC over the finish line with the last drop
of fuel: shortly afterwards the sale to the German industrialist Adolf
Schindling and its VDO AG have been successfully completed.
At the end, all the Hunters and the golden Lepines were sold and from the 1000
open face PW's, there were 565 pieces made, the last of these sold without the
markings of the 1979 Schutzenfesten on the dial.
So on the market, there are 4 different ones that could be found.
These are nice watches, with great movements and can be found from time to
time on the market. The cases in silver and gold are very heavy, even the
inner dust covers were made of solid silver or gold.
A good piece to have in a collection.
Today the hunter with cal 982., limited to 100 pieces.
And a picture of the Lepine without the reference to the Schutzenfesten.
