Hey Guys/Gals,
I have never posted over here before,I guess because I only collect American pocket watches,but I just made a trade and ended up with this fusee in a real nice hunting case. I do not know how to date it,nor have I seen a case marked like this before. It looks to be 18 sized,it is key wind and set,and has two places to wind it in the back,and the movement reads Edw. Grafton,Fleet Street,London,and the serial # is 12954. The case has what looks to be an eagle with the #18 and the letter G and B.P.& Bro. inside the covers. Any ideas? Thanks. Here are a couple of photos. The movement

The case

Hi Cecil

Loomes Watchmakers & Clockmakers of the World list a Edward Grafton in London in 1851.

Nice looking movement with the jewel on the fusee

I would say you case in an American made case, the eagle is an old silver mark for US Silver, so the watch was probably imported & then cased in this country.

I will see if I can find more.

Tom

This is from the 1843 London Post Office Directory.

Hey Tom, Thanks. The case is gold. Either solid or filled,I don't know.

Sorry Cecil I wasn't paying attention to the color, let me look in another book but I think it may be 18K US made.

In 1902 there is still a guy by his name in London, don't know if it is him or perhaps a son.

Tom

Cecil

Maybe someone else can add to this, I can't find you casemaker yet, but I do believe that is an American mark 1850's?

Also I found a book on line written by a Edward Gafton of London about Horology, you should be able to look at it here;
http://books.google.com/books?...ton%20london&f=false

Tom

The book is by your guy, if you look at page 63 you will see this.

Cecil

I noticed you said it has two places to wind it? If it is a fusee I believe you should only wind it at the fusee, where the jewel is. The other winding square where the gear is should only be there for that gear & not to wind it by you may take a chance of breaking the chain by turning that, you will put too much tension on the chain.

Tom

Hey Tom,Not knowing anything about this watch,I am not messing with it. It runs good with just winding the large winder,so I'm leaving the small one alone.

Cecil

I could be wrong but if you watch is built like all the fusee's I have played with, the arbor on the mainspring barrel is just to hold the ratchet gear in place. I also use it so I can put a couple of pre-winds on the barrel so when the mainspring runs down the chain stays tight & doesn't fall off the barrel or the fusee. Sometimes the arbor is so short you would have trouble putting a key on it or sometimes it is actually under the dial.

I am afraid if you were to put too much tension on the mainspring you can actually break the fusee chain.

I would guess your case only has the one key hole that would line up with the fusee.

Tom

Hey Tom, Yes only one hole to wind it. I downloaded Mr. Grafton's book and started reading it. Pretty interesting fellow.

I still haven't figured out when he was born. This ad was in the 1845 "The Banker's Magazine.

Beautiful quality movement Cecil, thanks for putting the photo's up for us.
Great information too Tom, you must have a heck of a lot of resources at your fingertips.

Tom's right too about the possibility of a chain breakage if you fiddle around with the smaller key square, I'll try explain for you the reasons.

As stated, it is used to adjust the pre-load of the mainspring acting on the fusee, which in principle, is to set the spring to operate within its optimum or most uniform range of power.

At the extreme ends, a spring's power is either too weak or too strong, but somewhere in the middle, it's 'reasonably' constant.
Match the spring to the fusee - which itself is designed to balance out the variations of spring strength, and you will have (in theory) a constant force driving the train.

If the spring pre-load is too slack, as Tom mentioned, the chain can fall off the barrel when unwound.
It also means the spring will be too weak towards the end of the fusee travel and the watch most likely stop anyway.

The real danger though is if you tension too far!
this often happens when someone tweaks a weak spring to keep a watch running when nearly unwound!

Under the normal operating range of a correctly set pre-load, the chain can never be overtightened or stretched, because the fusee has stopwork fitted!
This takes the form of a small lever, which is lifted by the chain when being wound up.
When the chain is on the final turn, the stop lever will have raised sufficiently to obstruct the rotation of the fusee cone, which has a small 'snail' fixed on it's end, which eventually catches the lever and stops.

As the key is directly turning the fusee cone only, which is now solid against the stop, the chain is under no pressure from the key - only the mainspring.

If the spring tension is 'tweaked' to far though, you can have a situation where the spring is fully coil bound Before the fusee stopwork has arrested the cone, and if a gorilla is cranking the key, the chain will eventually break!

Fusee chains are quite fragile, and meant to hold the spring tension alone, and not act as a winding stop for the barrel and fusee.

As with any watch, if the chain breaks with a fully wound mainspring, the result is train wheel damage, and additionally on a fusee if the chain breaks at the wrong end (fusee cone), it can take with it whatever it can scythe it's way through when it is centrifuged out from the barrel as it spins in recoil.

If that happens, just hope you're not holding an open or uncased movement in your fingers!

John

Hey John, Thanks for the additional information. This will be the first non American watch to be added to my collection,and I sure don't want to break it.

Hey Guys, I posted about this watch a while back and didn't learn much about it. I think I need to sell it and I sure need to know if it is solid gold or filled. I think it is solid,because I looked for the mark on the internet,and found some watches for sale with the same mark and they are advertised as solid. I am going to sell it here in the forum so if anyone recognizes this mark,please speak up. The watch is in a beautiful hunting case,with a nice dial,and glass crystal. The bow is worn pretty badly from a chain,I suppose,and there is no discoloration,so I think the bow is solid gold also. I think this watch dates to the mid 1800s.