Can anyone give me more information on this watch. I spoke to Lindell the other day and managed to get the information below but have lots of questions.

So far I have Waltham AWWCo Riverside 15J S16 open face pendant set, stamped "Adjusted" on the cock. Fogs patent, material grade P, made in 1888, and under balance "Non-Magnetic" looks like stainless hairspring and balance?

Now it gets better, from the records we find that this serial number appears to be the first one (4034001) of a short run of 10 Anti-magnetic watches! (4034001-4034010) Do I have the first one? What have I here?

p 1

p2

Watch is running presently although it needs some attention

Chris -- Nice watch! The Non-Magnetic examples are always nice to have. The transcription of the handwritten records can sometimes give you too much information. Production runs are sometimes broken down only on the basis of date of production. For instance, 4,034,001-10 were followed by an identical run of non-magnetic Riverside movements from 4,034,011-150, but probably produced slightly later (the production date of your group is illegible, but the next group was from Nov.'89 to Apr.'90). The next 350 movements were not Non-magnetic. All 500 of these are otherwise the same. Another 500 hunting-case movements followed, also mixed N.M. and regular. This was but one of several production runs of 15j '88 model Riverside grade movements. They were also produced with nickel plates.

So far there is no indication that the run of 10 is "much earlier" than the others. I am trying to access another transcription of the production data to see if the dates are more legible. Meanwhile, I would note that other early runs of this model (in nickel) go back as far as June 1888. Chris' watch may not be the first '88, but it certainly is among the first and perhaps was the first Riverside grade in gilt. One would have to pore over the handwritten ledgers to be sure.

Jerry,

Would you know the when the tip of the train bridge went fom square to rounded or rounded to square? I have a Riverside similiar to yours but it has the rounded end..

John Pavlik

John, this is a very good question and a good area for research. By the way, this variation only occurs on the open-face models. Based on examples I have or have seen, the squared train bridge seems to be only on early nickel-plate models. Nickel movements 3,574,626 (shown above, made June'89-Aug.'90) and 4,145,086 (made Apr.'90-Jan.'91) both have the squared bridge. Nickel movement 4,917,857 (May-Aug.'91) has the rounded end. I have observed gilt movements with serial numbers down to Chris' example and have not seen one with the squared bridge. I have payed attention to only a limited sample, however.

I tried looking at catalog cuts/illustrations to see if the serial numbers on these movements would shed some light on the situation until I found #4,069,526 in different catalogs, one squared and one rounded There was another early gilt movement shown with the squared bridge, but I do not trust it. Catalog cuts are notorious for being doctored to illustrate what they wanted to show. I am afraid that only real examples will tell the tale.

I have been looking at the serial numbers and I find interesting that they seem to show a split production run starting same dates, did they have two production lines?
IE
1 June 1889 to 31 Oct 1889 Ser No 3978001 to 3978100
1 June 1889 to 31/10 1889 Ser No 3978191 to 3978200

and the same format for M88 staring 1 Sept 1899 for a split run 3999501 to 3999900

then mine show show a definate undated run of 10 (4034001-010), then the above familair double split run of 4034011 to 4034500
Do you think as suggested above that mine may have been the very first gilt model with this rounde plate?

On the square and rounded plates. Isn't one open face and the other hunter case?
Brian C.

Hi.

I'd very much like to know how one gets access to several different transcriptions of the waltham serial numbers. Are they from books? if so, which books, and how can one get them? or is it just a series of books, or articles that you've assembled?

Are there on-line sources, either of serial numbers or images of various classes and grades of waltham watches?

The other question I had was: how much variation do you expect within a class or grade? or, put another way, how much difference is there between grades or classes? Does it come down to only a few parts, such as the shape or action of the balance? or is it based on lots of different elements? For example, Chris' watch has differently shaped train plates, from Jerry's in the sense that there's much more open space around the balance, and the rachet and mainspring.

Also Jerry suggests that magnetic and non-magnetic watches are more or less counted as the "same" in this scheme rather than different, as I would have expected.

Are there general rules one can apply for thinking of one watch as significantly different from another?


Thanks,
Jessica

Jessica, you've asked a lot of good questions, and I will get to them all this evening. In the meantime, regarding the serial number transcriptions. There are at least two different handwritten ledgers of serial numbers under 7,500,000 that were made at slightly different times. One of these has been transcribed by a group of volunteers and is available to all at this web site Waltham Serial Numbers. To this has been added Jim Schneider's database of all Waltham numbers that he transcribed from the "gray book". The gray book is the more commonly available serial number list that Waltham put out in later years. Unfortunately they combined many similar runs to keep it relatively short and there are many movements in hand that do not match the list. Regular and non-magnetic movements may have been grouped together, or even close grades. There is another transcription of the early handwritten records, that another collector has, that I hope to check to see if the dates for Chris' movement is recorded there.

Squared or rounded end on train bridges -- There were three different patterns used:
The one on the left was used for all hunting models, in nickel or gilt.
The one in the middle was used on early open-face movements.
The one on the right was used on most open-face movements, in nickel or gilt.

Regarding Jessica's question about variations within a grade -- this is what can make collecting fun (or obsessive). Look at the Illinois Bunn Special -- with all of the different damaskeen patterns, different markings and locations of markings the Bunn collectors have a lifetime of opportunity. To some collectors this is important, to others it is ridiculous. These are cosmetic differences. There are also subtantive differences that can appear within one grade, such as number of jewels, single- or double-roller, non-magnetic (hairspring, balance and pallet fork), gold train, etc. Some collectors want both the hunting and open-face versions of a grade, others don't care. This may depend on manufacturer, too. Waltham did not apply different grade names or numbers to open-face or hunting models. Most of the other companies did. Documenting these differences and collecting examples of each can make a nice collection.

When a company like Waltham blocked out 50 or 100 or 1000 movements to be a particular grade they were usually not all finished at once, although the plates may have been stamped out at the same time. Unfinished movement were left "in the gray", to be finished as needed. Typically they were finished in groups of ten, and the groups were not necessarily taken in order. Evidence of this occurs where there has been an evolution in the final finish, and later styles have earlier numbers. I have seen examples of this out-of-sequence finishing from both Waltham and Elgin. One especially sees this in the higher grades where demand was lower. One group of ten might have been finished many years later than another from the same run.

"Are there general rules one can apply for thinking of one watch as significantly different from another?"
Only to a point. Most collectors would consider the number of jewels quite significant. But, if only one person thinks it significant that there was a change in damaskeen pattern, then is it really significant? If a group of collectors consider it important then it may become another matter. The significance of any particular variation is going to depend on collector knowledge, interest and if the variation can be tied to some production or historical change.

Update on Chris' watch --
I finally got access to the other ledger. In the date column these 10 watches (4034001-10)are marked "Not del'd. Will go later". It thus appears that these 10 movements may have been finished later than the following 140 movements (since at least they were delivered later). If they were finished later this would also explain the rounded end of the train bridge.

The ledger notation raises a question about the significance of the dates in the ledger. Many have assumed (myself included) that these are production or finishing dates. I am now convinced that these dates are delivery dates (presumably to the sales agent, Robbins & Appleton). Therefore, at best, they provide a latest date to the production and finishing of those movements. The movements would have to have been finished at some undetermined date prior to delivery.

Jerry
Thanks for your information, can you identify from the ledger is this the first run of gilt models S16 88s, Lindell seems sure that this is the first run of gilt models adn would be great to get some hard proof of this.

There is a run of Riverside Grade 1888 models at 3978001. I believe these would have been gilt, but that is not explicitly recorded in the database.

Lindell, the earliest serial number does not necessarily have a direct relation to production order. In this case, for whatever reason, these 10 watches were shipped from the factory later than the following 140 non-magnetic movements (that is, after April 1890). My nickel movement 3574626 is an example of a non-magnetic movement with a lower serial number and is also from a group that began shipping 5 months earlier than Chris' group (in June'89). The lowest serial number for a non-magnetic '88 model is 3574201 which was shipped as early as October 1888. A slightly higher numbered run was shipped as early as June '88. I see little reason to suspect that Chris' movement is from a rather speculative "test run", especially with the rounded train bridge end.