This weekend I made a great purchase and possibly a rare find. It's a wonderful Solid 14K Gold near mint condition 16s HC Illinois which contains a model 189 movement Serial No. 1516914 (Getty ??) which is marked 21 Ruby Jewels. As you'll also see the highly damaskeened 3 finger bridge movement is also in near mint condition, although it could stand a service to get it running smoothly.

I'd like to ask our Illinois experts to please express their opinions on the rarity and features of this particular watch..

I plan to send my watch up to Chris Abell for some TLC.

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Nice find Dave!

A very pretty movement.

quote:

1516914

You have a super high grade Getty Model Grade 189. According to the Illinois database, it is one of 390 made in hunting case, and is adjusted to 6 positions. Manufacture date is about 1900

Dave! What a Beauty!

I just love that damaskeening.

You got yourself a real GEM.

Excellent piece, beautiful movement, case, and all. I hope the original owner died peacefully of lung cancer. After a thorough cleaning you are sure to have a great example of the simplistic beauty of a 3 finger Getty movement as effected by a Watch manufacturer who successfully carved their market niche by "Customizing" every production run with rare watch artistry! Maybe they had a "watch a month club".

Absolutely stunning Dave, congratulations!

Dave:
Congratulations on a very nice find. Beautiful watch!
Cheers!
Joel

Dave suggested I put a couple up of the movement as I found it, broken/rusted staff, thick green yuk all over.

Any comments on the dial feet here 3 used one cut back?

mainspring shot as expected

The Balance wheel is awesome. Treat it very carefully, the hairspring looks nice. Wish I was there to "help" get this in order. If both ends are still good, the main looks OK. I like to see these highly jeweled watches run with a more gentle spring anyway. I would clean it and keep it in.
Assuming the regulator was set near the middle before this was stored, this watch should clean up and run in fine order with clean pivots and jewels. I would polish those pivots very carefully with little rouge on a peg.

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Excellent piece, beautiful movement, case, and all. I hope the original owner died peacefully of lung cancer

Just to stick my head in the door for a second....David, there's NOTHING peaceful about dying from lung cancer. I know, as it's approaching the first year anniversery of my standing by my Dad's hospital bed and watching him gasp his last from the disease.

Now, back to the program already in progress.

Regards! Mark

Mark I wholeheartedly agree. What a callous remark for someone to make.

I'm sure David did not intend for that to come out the way it did, Michael, but I did want to point out it isn't all that peaceful a way to go. The timing of the statement was just off for me and mine, that's all.

I also don't want to derail the conversation. I'm sorry. Looks to me like Chris has his hands full, even if it IS a nice looking watch at first glance.

Regards! Mark