VIRTUAL POCKET WATCH MUSEUM DAY 76, cal 67, Niello

We have spoken about Niello cased pocket watches somewhere along the last 75
plus days of the Virtual Museum. Personally, I find it very sad that this art
form has all but completely died out - and it's really upsetting to me that
there is literaly no one that I could find in a world wide search, who could
help to restore some of these pieces of art.

Niello is actualy a black mixture, usually sulphur, copper, silver and
lead which is used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal, especially silver
as is the case with most IWC Niello pocket watches. It is added as a powder or
paste, then fired until it melts or at least softens, and flows or is pushed
into the engraved lines in the metal. It hardens and blackens when cool, and
the niello on the flat surface is polished off to show the filled lines in
black, contrasting with the polished metal around it. I was told by the only
two practising Niello craftsman here in The Netherlands, that the primary
reason why it died out, is the toxic nature of the sulpher and lead fumes
given off during the process of melting and working the molten niello, and the
inherant risks of inhalation of those gases.

By very nature of the process and material used - Niello ends up to be a
rather hard and brittle cover layer, which is sadly prone to chipping and
cracking. It is very seldom to find a niello cased pocket watch which shows
zero signs of this chipping.

The Watch

Niello inlaid pocket watches were not cheap and the archives in Schafhausen
reflect that indeed that prices for the same silver cased movement as found in
a niello case were substaintially cheaper. So whay kind of man, would buy such
a watch?

Well, this man above was exactly such a man!

Pictured here some 98 years ago circa 1922 is Senior **** Ramon Ortiz of San
Jose, Costa Rica alongside his wife, Ramona Gutierrez with their three
offsping Victoria,Jose and Antonio.

Clearly, a man of discerning tastes as the watch was sold to him (or his
company) some years before in 1910.

The level of detail of this Niello work is amazing. Look at how even the
silver crown bow is inlaid.

Above, you read that the niello was applied, allowed to cool off and harden,
and then polished off. So in fact, when new, that niello was polished to a
high glass like gloss.

I tried to catch the brilliance of this finish when taking a photo of the case
back as you seen here below.

Now, whilst this is a 0.900 german silver case, note how it was also adorned
with a 18K gold cartouche for engraving. Note too, the diference in the
paterning here, as opposed to Tonny's niello case.

This watch being older and from a period when the Cal. 67 still did not exhist
(the first Cal. 67 left the manufactury in 1933) is fitted with a C.52.

Fully restored and serviced, she runs just as the logo on the movement
suggests - like clockwork : Probus Scafusia !

Calibre 67 Kriegs Marine watches were shown before. There were several
different models. The few KM watches found after the war were often de-
nazified for obvious reasons. This was often done in an unprofessional way by
dealers or collectors, scratching out the 'K M' logo on the dial, removing the
military marks on the back cover by grinding or polishing. Watches were
seriously damaged by that.

However, after the war , the German Navy (Bundes Marine) recovered some of the
cal. 67 war watches because the ships returned or because they were never used
on a ship. The German authorities decided to use the watches for their post
war vessels, which says something about their quality once more. This topic
was discussed by Tonny in a previous post in this thread.

The military dials were removed and exchanged for a white enamal one without
any logo. The stamps on the back cover were removed completely and the watches
got a new wooden case with a NATO stock number (
Versorgunsnummer).Here
is such rare watch. The number of recovered cal. 67 is unknown.

Regards,

Adrian,

(alwaysiwc).

What a pocket watch trifecta! Thanks, gentlemen!

Magnifiscent watches today gentlemen

Thank you for the explanation of niello.

In another post, other techniques of making watch cases more attractive were
discussed by using a thin gold layer : gold filling, rolled gold and gold
plating.

Mark mentions the reason why these old techniques have disappeared : the
procedure was often extremely toxic and by that forbidden by law, often in the
19th century. However the end product was not at all toxic. A crumble of
niello is harmless even if still metallic lead or sulpher is in it. Probably
the most toxic method of processing was the technique of fire guilding. As far
as I know it was not applied in pocket watch cases ( maybe in the 18th
century) but abundantly on the much larger cases of table and mantle clocks.
In fire guilding a mixture of gold powder and mercury was applied on the
outside of the case. The gold powder is solved in mercury. By heating the
item, the mercury will vaporise and the gold will deposit in a thin layer on
the heated metal.

Vaporized mercury is one of the most toxic anorganic material known. Lacking
sufficient ventilation in the work shop, the vapor was inhaled by the
craftsmen. First the teeth, then the hair fell out and finally organ failure
appeared. The dome of a church in St Petersburg was guilded this way : 17
workers died. After 1830 fire guilding was banned by law.

Adrian,

(alwaysiwc).

Adrian, very interesting background to the metal finishing. I will never look
towards that ceiling again without thinking of how it looked originally (and
how many workers died doing it).

To give those
here unfamiliar with Niello cases an idea of why I'd love to be able to find a
restorer for these cases - and how the niello chips out, here is a photo of
such "damage".

So you see the bare silver, where the niello inlay has chipped out.

From what is otherwise a very beautiful caseback.