Hi everyone, I just have a few general questions that I am curious about.

1) Why where some Illinois 706's made with 17 jewels and some made with 19?

2)What is the purpose of a bulls eye crystal?

3) What is vermeil?

4) Why Is it better to set the hands clockwise?

5) Why is it recommended that you wind your watch at roughly the same time per day?

6) What is an incaflex balance?

Thanks guys
Francesco

Lets see if I can answer a couple.

2. It just looks good without any real purpose as far as I know.

3. It is a combination of sterling silver, gold, and other precious metals, commonly used as a component in jewelry. An alloy that looks pretty.

4. Most likely because it reduces wear on the cannon pinion.

5. To make sure the mainspring is consistently wound and to help forgetful humans remember to wind a watch.

Hi, I'll try #2.

Unusual Crystal --- "Bullseye!"

Welcome aboard Francesco. I'm glad to see you're already availing yourself of the best feature of IHC 185: getting answers to your questions in a polite and friendly atmosphere.

More on #2: A bullseye crystal is hand-blown glass, as you can tell from the pontil mark at the center (the raised circular flattened area), which is where it was cut off from the pontil rod.

A pontil is just a temporary "handle" to enable the glassblower to hold onto the piece of hot blown glass during finishing operations after the blowpipe has been removed from the open end.

Bullseye crystals are considered period correct for 18th and early 19th Century watches such as verge fusses, because that's the way all crystals were made back then, but are now also made for later watches because collectors like the way they look.

Hi lets do #6:

The incaflex balance was one part of the swiss patent #120553 (oct. 1st 1927) invented by Paul Wyler (Wyler watch Co 1924 Basel).
The balance rim was flexible connected to the pinion by to 'S' shaped arms. The balance was narrow fitted in a flat cup on the movement. Ths combination acted as a shock absorber, preventing the balance pins being bend or broken.
1956 Wyler dropped two watches from the top of the Eifel Tower to advertise the virtue of his mechanism - they continued running.

Regards
Gerald

Hi Francesco,

1) It is common to find many variations within a given grade. I recently acquired a 4 position watch in a batch listed as a run of 3 position watches. Many of the records were lost to history or have not become available to upload to public data bases. Some of the elders of this club have private collections of factory records and can give you details on your watches if you list the serial number and manufacturer here. Sometimes they can even tell you who the watch was sold to and on what date... Other data bases are being built, one example at a time as we post them on this site. Some folks out there are pulling data off our listings and updating the data bases with "known examples" to validate existing information or update with new info.

4) Some early single roller watches will have a tendency to "over bank" when wound counter clockwise. This is a condition where the roller pin jumps to the back side of the pallet fork. To correct this condition, I have to lift the balance cock and re-index the balance to the pallet fork... it is risky and time consuming. A lot easier to stay in the habit of setting the hands clockwise.

5) Incabloc is a floating upper jewel that accomplishes the same thing. It allows the upper jewel to shift sideways in a floating socket when the watch is subjected to a side shock. The jewel moves off center to absorb the shock and over time re-centers itself in the spring loaded mount. You can generally spot them because it looks like the upper balance jewel has a gold hour glass on it's cap jewel. These modifications where developed because the mass of the balance with all it's weights is so extreme compared to the diameter (strength and brittleness) of the pivots on a balance staff.

Hi Francesco, Vermeil in my understanding is gold plated over silver.

The Grade 706 came in 5 variants in qty and positions adjusted;

17J 4 positions, Open Face production 690 Pc's
19J 3 positions, Hunter Case production 1730 Pc's
19J 3 positions, Open Face production 44870 Pc's
19J 4 positions, Open Face production 900 Pc's
21J 3 positions, Open Face production 340 Pc's

Post fixed. Thank You Joe!

quote:

4) Some early single roller watches will have a tendency to "over bank" when wound counter clockwise. This is a condition where the roller pin jumps to the back side of the pallet fork. To correct this condition, I have to lift the balance cock and re-index the balance to the pallet fork... it is risky and time consuming. A lot easier to stay in the habit of setting the hands clockwise.

Interesting first I had heard of this but it makes sense. I know I heard on Repeaters not to set counter clockwise because it could mess up the chimming mechanism, is that true??

My OF 17j grade 706 is marked adjusted 4 positions. It is also marked 706.

My 706 has nickel plates, narrow stripe damascening, gold train and a red dot Illinois DS dial. It is housed in a Philadelphia 20yr gold filled case.

With only several hundred of this variant produced, does this affect desireability and value, especially considering the relatively high number of all variants combined that were produced?

And, does having the grade marking on the movement affect desireabiity and value? Some 706's do not have the grade marking on the movement.

Robert,

I learned the over banking thing from one of the post I read here on this site just a couple months ago. It could have come from an old post I stumbled across when I was hop scotching around in the older messages...

The ironic thing was, I was winding and setting one of my watches the next day, I set the time and it quit working... I was pretty upset... then it popped in to my head that I had just read about the possibility of this happening the day before. Sure enough, I opened the watch, reset the balance and it worked fine again...

Paul must have missed that post but thanks for reposting. There is a lot of useful valueable info floating around this site if I take the time to look. I need to remember this step so I dont do the same as you especially on watches I am in the middle of listing.

Joe your is more valuable for the Jewel count, markings AND quantity produced. The Hunter is probably the most collectible though to a "dedicated Illinois Watch Collector".

You're welcome Dave, and thank you!

Francesco, do a web search on vermeil (pronounced vur-MAY). The White House in Washington D.C. has a Vermeil Room. It is where the White House vermeil collection is displayed. It also serves as a ladies waiting room with a ladies lounge attached.

Thanks for all the answers everyone !! very interesting

Robert, Ive also heard that you must never set repeaters anti-clockwise.
But I also found this in a Jaeger leCoultre manual:

"It is absolutely essential to avoid setting the time when the minute repeaterchime is in operation; this could damage the mechanism."

but I supose by now they fixed the problem of setting a repeater anti-clockwise

Gerald, its amazing that he dropped the watch from 300m and it still worked!

Almost every repeater was designed to be able to set the time forwards and backwards. On occasion, the flirt (surprise piece activating lever) on a minute repeater can get stuck on the snail when going backwards, but this is uncommon.

When a watch is in the process of repeating, the rack for the quarters and/or minutes is down and in the way of the quarter or minute snail. Trying to set it will cateh the snail on the rack and stop the repeating and/or bend or break parts. Your fingers moving the crown are much stronger than the small metal parts inside under the dial.