is this meylan's movement?

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/C-H-MEY...BQ)WSqsP(!~~60_3.JPG

Possibly Meylan (not melan). Maybe move to European Watch Forum.

thanks, mike

Jun Li, there are three good reasons to think your watch might be a C.H. Meylan, and two equally good reasons for doubting it.

The good reasons are:

(a)C.H. Meylan appears to have made many private label movements that do not bear its signature. Since these movements are unsigned, one cannot be sure who made them, but I have at least a dozen of these PLs that are not signed C.H. Meylan but look very much like signed C.H. Meylans I have. Hence, the fact that your is unsigned, hardly rules out your watch being a C.H. Meylan.

(b) There are C.H.Meylan-signed 3/4 plate movements that look to be very similar or identical to your movement, if you can imagine it stripped of the chronograph mechanisms. I am attaching a photo of one such movement in my collection, which is SS#34,984, about 1000 numbers down from your watch's SS#. I have another similar non-chronograph Meylan-signed watch, SS#34,956.

(c)Some of the chronograph mechanisms on your watch resemble those on my Meylan-signed split-second chronograph, shown below. Your watch has less "stuff" because it lacks the split-second feature.

But there are two good reasons to doubt that your watch is a C.H. Meylan.

(1) It isn't signed, at least not on the top plate. Absent a signature, one can't be sure who made a Swiss watch. Even with a signature, one cannot be sure in many cases.

(2) To expound on reason number two, I believe the 3/4 plate movement was actually made by J.J. Badollet, a fine firm that had connections with C.H. Meylan. On your watch and on both my Meylan-signed 3/4 plate watches (one shown in my first posting), there is a stamped standing lion in the plate below the balance wheel. That was Badollet's trademark. Some say, I believe incorrectly, that if the lion looks one way, it's Badollet's trademark, but if the lion looks the other way, it's C.H. Meylan's mark. The source of this, what I believe to be, myth seems to be Pritchard's monument opus on Swiss watchmakers. I believe thie is a myth because I have 26 signed Meylans, and 13 more unsigned pocket watches I attribute to Meylan, and only the two 3/4 plate movements of those 39 have lions on them. Therefore, I think Badollet made the 3/4 plate "Meylans," or at least their ebauches, and Meylan did nothing more than finish them, or possibly in your watch's case, add the chronograph mechanism.

I hope that helps.

Ethan,thanks for your information