What the heck does the inscription on this very scarce (only 310 made) 14k Illinois 435 say? All I can read is the date.

Mother to John

If there were a space between "to" and "John" that would make sense. I am sure that engravers sometimes made mistakes. Is this just a typo or an unusual style?

Ethan, I agree with Eugene, and also think that the engraver was running out of space was the reason for the lack of space between 'to' & 'John'....

Maybe Mitch could help out here with his experence in engraving....English Calligraphy is one of the hardest engravings for me to read....

Regards,

Jerry

This is hand engraving vs machine engraving. Yes, engravers make mistakes and usually they can't be corrected, as in this case. I suspect that when the 'to' was placed the engraver could see that space would be tight to the curve of the case and the decision was made to condense the lettering.

I think the engraver had the spacing fairly well laid out it's just that the capital letter "J" kinda got squeezed a bit with the serif on the "o" in the word "to"

I would be more concerned with the difference in calligraphy between the presentation and the date

regards,
bb

Why should I be concerned if the fonts don't match? The inscriptions don't involve famous or even identifiable persons; hence, fraud isn't a issue. I often see inscriptions in multiple fonts, such as the one below, which uses 3 or 4 fonts.

Nice watch's Ethan

regards,
bb

I see it as "Mother to John."