This loose assortment in my "at home shop" is $1450.00 worth of mainsprings at today's "new Prices" !!!!!!!!!!

Those prices are "as quoted" $43.95 by Excells, In Stoneham, Mass, who was selling them for $6.00 each in 2007. This puts mainsprings on the endangered species list!

As Main Springs approach the value of Gold, we might as well start buying watches just to strip out their main springs! . . . . or we can create a "mainspring trading post" as a permanent section of "wanted to buy".

While I know that our web site is mostly for posting research data and having fun showing and learning about our watch and clock collections, I offer that we must take some action to protect ourselves and preserve our hobby from this clear profiteering (excells is selling off an inventory they bought for $0.10 on the dollar in 2006.)

Then we can;

1. Post the spring you need by the watch maker serial number and description and if you have any other popular size spares offer a trade for it.

2. If you need something NOW, check with Jim Liang who is Bucking the trend with a very good supply of white steel aprings for about 25% off market. Jim is listed in our business directory under "Old LaRose" parts

David these Mainsprings are hard too get now but i bet in 3 or 4 years they will be much higher if you can even find one for sale..I think higher prices will maybe result in someone making these again..

It all depends on the demand. I have had antique cars nearly all my life. Availability of parts is in direct proportion to demand. We now get the majority of our car parts from India and China. We complain that the quality is not what it used to be but that gets better each year. The people who sell the parts, put together a buyers group that works on getting the quality up.

We may need to find some companies in China or India that would want to work on manufacturing. May be that a group like this would be a good group to work on it.

With some help from one of our members, it looks like we can get a supply of white steel springs from a Swiss Manufacturer for under $10.00 after importation.

If successful, we will need to find out what our membership needs to get. Due to the economy situation, this may be a one time deal.

When you look at the attached list, for exxample, a 16s Elgin 817 spring is;

RS1S11982 which is 2.60 .20 540 x 17 ring

20080601_Liste_Liquidation_GR2.pdf (33 Kb, 665 downloads)

Hey David,
Are these mainsprings available now? If so,how can I get some of them,and how do I decipher the code to know what number fits what? I haven't paid much attention over the years to specs for mainsprings,I have always just ordered them by the serial number or brand and size of the watch. I need mostly just mainsprings for 18s Waltham,Elgin,and New York Standard. My supply is always behind my need.

David,

I could use a couple of each for 17,19, and 21 jewel Bunn and Bunn Specials but have no idea which ones those would be. Any suggestions?

Steve

When it comes to mainsprings,a word of caution from my own experience. Some of the mainsprings that are available today are "old stock", sometime older than 50 years. I they were not stored properly they could be affected by rust, and we all know that it will take a small spot of rust to cause the spring to break.

Recently I bought a batch of springs on ebay and when I received them, I realized they were all rusty and useless (see picture). Luckily the seller was nice and refunded my payment.

It seems that some kind of spring material is also more prone to be attacked by rust than others.

We will have to work to cross reference the list to the mainsprings. All mainsprings have 3 numbers (at least) that have to be verified. The width, Thickness, and length. Then there is the outer end finish detail and sometimes reference to Barrel size (I guess).

I think the most important thing right now is to verify some spring details, and then we can gather up an order.

Thanks David. Peter,I also have bought many "new old stock" springs that were useless,but most of the time,I am just stuck with them.

Cecil,thanks for your comment. The pictures you see above are the ones I sent to the seller, I guess the evidence was overwhelming...