I found this Illinois 2-tone 16s 17j Adjusted all Gold fittings and train watch lanquishing in a $50.00 untitled 5-piece "grab bag" of eBay watch stuff along with a nice Elgin, and a very good mid-grade swiss thing. Looking at all the gold work, and seeing the accuracy of this watch, I researched this little sweeheart's s/n 3629450 in Roy Ehrhardt's Vol II Illinois" book. R. E's only comment is this movement and run is the largest number of mid-grade 16s Ill movements made.

I checked this "mid-grade" piece on Mumford and it has less than 1.0 msec beat error, so I fear for the future claims of quartz watch accuracy being disproved after I clean and adjust her.

To the point though, has anybody seen or heard of these 2-tone movements with all this goldwork being a higher grade run "inside" the 2-3,000 that R.E. is remarking about when this one was made.

David,
I think you will find that movements with patterns that are different from the normal crop up in lots of grades, I don’t know if they were special orders and higher quality.
Here are some examples that are different from the usual striped pattern on the unnamed Illinois Watch Co. Size 12’s Grade 405.

Jim Carroll