February 21, 2009, 11:08
John WoolseyRoskopf Railway Watch Cheat
Recently clearing out some of my watches, I turned up this little gem!It's a Roskopf Patent 1A watch with a twist, it has fake jewels added.
Not only are they fake in that they don't actually do anything, they're not even jewels but discs of red celluloid!
How cheap is that!
The plates are quite different from the usual Roskopf fare too, in that they're alluminium with a small amount of engraving.
Usually, they're dead plain brass plates, often with a stamped steel balance cock.
Unusually too, the balance jewels are actually jewels, and the staff has normal pivots, where the norm is usually the conical type running in brass or steel plugs.
The big difference with Roskopf movements, is that the motionwork for the hands is driven directly off the back of the manispring barrel, which has a light friction hub enabling the hands to be set.
Otherwise, they're similar to other pin pallet movements such as Ingersol & Smiths etc.
I doubt it would have been used for railway timing though, more likely aimed at the rail enthusiast .............
John