Avoiding The Pitfalls
Spend Your Money Wisely
Pocket watches are both delicate and durable at the same time, easily broken and yet built with quality materials to run for decades, and designed with maintenance and repair in mind.
Most collectors want the pieces in their collection as close to factory-original as possible, so here are a few of the more obvious issues to avoid when considering purchasing a watch.
At First Glance
Damaged Dials
Once a fragile porcelain dial is broken or cracked it cannot be reversed, and correct replacements take time to locate. The damage usually occurs at or near the dial feet locations, the result of someone trying to pry the dial off without loosening the corresponding set screws.
Mismatched Hands
Incorrect or missing hands are an obvious problem because they can be difficult to find and expensive to replace. The minute hand is more susceptible to breaking, since it's longer and sits above the other two.
Replacements may involve broaching or closing the arbor hole and must be fitted carefully, polished and blued, and installed parallel.
Visible Dents
Dents are always caused by an impact. The metal is now stretched, making it difficult to completely erase the worst dents. Additionally, the fall will likely have caused internal damage to the more delicate components, like the balance staff pivots and gear train jewels.
On The Outside
Bent Pendants
A bent or leaning pendant is the result of an impact, which likely means a broken balance staff. Bent pendants are also difficult to wind because the stem is binding in the arbor. See the Dents section above.
Blown Hinges
Hunter cases have delicate hinges and it doesn't take much to force the covers past 90 degrees. Once the metal of the frame is distorted it cannot be made right again. These are called "sprung" hinges.
Misaligned Patterns
Patterns that don't line up horizontally or with the pendant can be caused by a manufacturing defect or the back is from a different case, resulting in mismatched serial numbers.
Worn Crowns
Crowns wore out from constant use and case manufacturers made many different models, diameters, sizes and threads, so finding an original new-old stock replacement is not easy.
Missing Bezels
The bezel is the thin ring that holds the crystal, and is specific to that manufacturer and style of case. Finding an exact replacement can be nearly impossible - and you still need a crystal.
Incorrect Bows
Chains wore the bow out quickly, so yours could be unoriginal or the wrong style. NOS parts are getting scarce, and while aftermarket replacements are available, the color-match is seldom accurate.
On The Inside
Unoriginal Jewels
Jewels that appear wrong are the most common indicator of damage, because it means the original has been broken. Milling a replacement is an exact science with regard to pivot size, diameter, and shoulder thickness, although the new one may not be a perfect color-match.
If the balance cap jewel sits below the plate it means that the balance was re-staffed with one that was too short, leading to more problems.
Molested Weights
A "poised" balance wheel is one that weighs the same at any point on the wheel rim, so any change in the balance weights will ruin the poise, which affects positional accuracy. This is one of the worst forms of intentional damage because the weights never need to be touched. When a watch inevitably slowed from thickening oils, the lazy choice was to simply grind off part of the balance weights to gain time.
Distorted Hairsprings
A hairspring is paired to the balance wheel in a process called vibrating, because there's a relationship between the working length of the spring and the amount of mass on the balance wheel. Replacing the hairspring means adding or removing weight to re-time and re-poise the watch, which is a very time-consuming and expensive process.
Mismatched Screws
Incorrect or mismatched screws means that the original hit the floor and couldn't be found. Most American factories chose unique thread pitches to ensure that only their material was used, so an obviously wrong screw likely means that it came from a different brand with different dimensions, and that the plate threads are now stripped.
Broken Parts
Broken or missing parts may be difficult to replace, especially if the watch is a rare variant or the factory had a short run. It's common to find certain parts broken, such as setting lever springs, since not all designs were good ones and the part sometimes failed because of this. Others were simply discarded, like stopworks and regulator springs.
Ghost Marks
Ghost marks mean that the case has held previous movements and is not the original. While this is not critical, original combinations are generally worth more. When the watch was first sold the case was fitted to the movement, ensuring a snug fit, but after repeated swaps a movement may end up in a replacement case that's a poor fit.
Franken Watches
Authenticity
Parts inevitably get worn out, lost or broken over the years, which must be replaced from new-old stock or culled from donor movements. This is standard practice with small parts like screws and jewels, but the larger pieces, such as the upper and lower plates, balance wheel, balance cock and others, are all factory-inscribed with matching serial numbers. A Frankenwatch is one that is cobbled together using any part with a serial number that came from a different watch.
Originality
Watches with matching serial numbers are far more desirable from a collecting standpoint, especially early or rare examples worth thousands of dollars. To some extent this is also true of watches that are in their original cases, and the value can climb when provenance is involved, like a factory shipping box or bill of sale. In May of 2018 our friends at Jones & Horan Auctions sold Rockford SN #1 - an original combination - for $91,000. Click HERE to see it happen.
Always avoid greedy sellers who gleefully part out original combinations for a few bucks, knowing that there are plenty of novice collectors who will chase their bits and pieces.
Key Winds
Vintage
Key winds are several decades older than railroad-era pocket watches, which means that they've had several more decades of repairs, and were sometimes run for far too long between cleanings. There was a transitional period in the 1880s when some models were equipped with both key and stem winding mechanisms, but by the turn of the century the key had become obsolete.
Quality
Nearly all key winds are low-grade pieces with fewer than 15 jewels and were not designed to run forever, so anticipate worn bushings and wheel pivots. Mismatched hands and missing screws are common, and since most had only a single case screw they are usually loose inside the case.
Accuracy
The oldest key winds had solid balance wheels, which couldn't compensate for changes in temperature, and they had no weights, so there was no simple way of correcting for poise issues. The flat hairsprings had no overcoil and were mounted in an inaccessible spot underneath the balance wheel, and because of these reasons they were not the most accurate timekeepers.
Cases
The overwhelming majority of key-wind watches have a single half-headed case screw, which acts like a drill bit, reaming out the case rim until the movement itself falls through the frame. When that happens the case is no longer able to hold the movement, and the only solutions are a special oversize washer or replace the case.
Condition
It's difficult to find examples that aren't ruined, especially hunters with their broken lift springs, reamed-out key arbors and worn front cover latches. The movements usually have stripped screws, cracked jewels, mismatched serial numbers, distorted hairsprings, missing alignment pins, loose canon pinions, and quite a few other problems. The taper pins holding the dial were easily lost and replaced with anything handy, which enlarged the dial feet until they split.