I bought this watch a few months back and I have gotten it out to send off for a good cleaning. I looked this watch up in Bill Meggers Illinois book and it doesn't mention anything about the what appears to be diamond end stones over the balance and escape wheel pinions along with the jewel next to the escapte wheel. Are these in fact diamond jewels? I am including a photo for your review. My movement is less than 100 away from the one show in Bill Meggers book on page 164 item 9. Any and all information would be appreciated.

Thanks,

John

John,
I believe that your stones are white sapphires rather than diamonds. Their most frequest use was as pallet stones, but they were also made as cap, hole and roller jewels as well.
Almost all the sapphires used in watch movements are water white rather than blue in color. There are exceptions, for example, the Edward Howard containes 23 matched deep blue sapphires, which are quite striking against the frosted gilt gold plates.
When sapphires are used as cap jewels the top surface is rounded, smooth ground and finished to show off the stone's clarity. When the cap jewels are diamonds they will have several flat facets ground and polished at random angles to each other, to catch the light better.

Ed,

Thanks for the info. They are all rounded on the top so your suggestion that they are white sapphire sounds to be correct. Why use some sapphire and some ruby? Are all of the 21 specials set up this way? This watch is very nice all and all and it is in its original 14K solid white gold Wadsworth case. With a date of 1928 on the inscription.

John,
The reason that I have seen given by the watch companies for the use of the white sapphire as pallet jewels was that "they have a finer grain structure" than ruby. Whether this made any measureable timekeeping difference or was just advertising hype I do not know. Ball in particular seemed very fond of sapphire pallet jewels and many of his ORRS watches had "sapphire pallets" engraved on the plates.
I don't think that there was any pattern for the use of the white jewels rather than ruby for the cap and hole jewels. It may have been based on price and availability.
BTW, at least one company, Keystone Howard, used to advertise that they used only rubies, and several makers advertised color matched "pigeon blood" rubies in some of their higher grade movements.

I had heard that sapphires were especially suited for cap jewels as they are less likely to become pitted by the pivot tip. I believe that sapphire pallets were also usually matched with steel escape wheels for reasons of their wearing characteristics.

Rubies are sapphires. They are all aluminium oxide with small amounts of impurities that cause the color. Rubies are just red sapphires with a few percent chromium oxide. I have not heard that the addition of the chromium oxide changes the ability to polish them or changes the hardness. Perhaps it is true, but I have never seen it. All other colors are just called sapphires, perhaps with a prefix to indicate the color. Blue sapphires are created by heating.

Sapphire or Corundum has a hardness of 9 on a 10 point scale (diamond is 10). They have been synthesized for watch work since 1902.

See http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/amber/go340/corundum.htm and http://www.24carat.co.uk/corundumframe.html

Don

Whats the possibility that "white" sapphires were used as they were less expensive.The grade 274 21j was a high production 62K medium grade watch.

Bob

Bob,

Your thought does have a sound of reason to it. I would agree with you on that point. I know you are a huge collector of 12 size watches, do you have a 21 jewel special you can compare to mine? I would like to know if they all came with the same cap jewel set up as mine. I do know that the Shugarts does attach a some what higher value to this version of the grade 274 with a starting low book of $110 to a high of $275 in a gold filled case. I haven't been collecting long enough to reason why. I do know the only 21 specials I have seen are mine, and the one in the Meggers Illinois book.

Thanks,

John

John your 21 Special comes from a run of 2000 movements 4,125,000 - 4,127,000 there are 3 variants in this run Time King, Illinois Watch Co. and 21 Special.
The 21 Special turns up in a run of 900 movements 4,079,000 – 4079,900 this run has also has 3 variants 21 Special, Illinois Central and Federal.
The sapphire cap jewels are in quite a lot of the 274 movements, I have see ruby jewels on the escape wheel although these may be have been changed by repairers.

Jim Carroll

John
If scarcity was the criteria most 12 size Illinois watches would be commanding higher prices.

As you may be aware Illinois produced over 1,000
different private label brands. In 12 size the market does not put much of a premium on most of these private label names.

Their are a few exceptions. for example Ariston( Chicagos Marshfield private label ) was made to higher specifications than other Illinois private labels and even had a different plate layout for some models.

Others private labels such as Ben Franklin,Dependon,Santa Fe,Burlington, Pennsylvania Special etc commmand a premium either due to their assciation with the railroads or the name is valued.

Maybe someday a private labels scarity may matter
but I would not hold my breath.

Bob