Mike showed this 21J Veritas in the most beautiful watch post which has one small additional feature you (and I) never saw before! . . .

We tore it down for cleaning and it DOES HAVE A GOLD PLATED HAIRSPRING AND . . . Gold PLated Stud . . . All assembled AFTER PLATING!

Try this on for collectability. A 21 Jewel SUPER VERITAS!!!!!

Wow! That's what I call high-grade!

I find that very interesting and have questions..

Is it practical and for what purpose does it serve

What effect would it have on a factory vibrated hairspring & the balance

And I assume it was done after it left the factory

regards,
bb

I'm with Buster, I don't see a real purpose in plating it and...wouldn't it add undue weight to the already light and delicate hairspring?
Looks nice though either way.

A question for Mike, does it keep good time?

In discussion with another member who has a lot of Elgin factory packed material, he told me that he had some of these in Elgin Packages as spare parts, including the gold plated stud. His are #2 strength 18s.

Besides looking pretty, the gold plate could have been a sweet way to fight rust.

As Gold plating was usually maxed at about 15 millionths of an inch (0.000015") on a spring that was about 2.5 thousandth's of an inch 0.0025) the result of 15/2500 = 0.6% (six tenths of a percent) difference in thickness. In the physical world, this is usually considered "trivial" in estimating spring tensile strength. Here, as it is gold, not steel it was less than "trivial".

Just adding a note, it is in the service process now, time accuracy was good before, we will report what it is when it is all finished.

I suppose as a practical matter it could have been done to minimize rust. How effective that would be I don't know. On the other hand we collectors enjoy the beautiful movements and beauty in the movement was prized when that watch was made. Many of us marvel at the damasceening and gold flashing on movements while acknowledging that beauty did not make it run better. I am sure Mikes watch was attractive when made and it still is today.

Thanks David.

regards,
bb

I agree with Deacon, this was just another way to add "bling" to the Veritas movement, which is also why gold jewel settings and train wheels were used, when from a functional standpoint, brass would have worked just as well.

Several years ago i bought several hundred hairsprings that came from the Elgin factory when they closed..In the group of hairsprings there is a dozen or so of these gold colored 16 size hairsprings don,t remeber if they have the gold stud ,i will dig them out in the morning and take a picture of them.

Sure does look like somebody had the right idea in the beauty department, because the bling really catches your eye. Maybe David can answer this question when he reports back later. Just wondering if this watch has any distinctive sound over other Veritas's being that the hairspring is gold plated and the sound resignates from the palet jewels to the hairspring.

I have a gold hairspring on an 18s 17j B.W.Raymond 3/4 plate.