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Clinton 59-Jewel Wristwatch? "Click" to Login or Register 
posted
Does anybody know about a wrist watch by Clinton Watch Co (Swiss). It is marked as having 59 jewels. Upon opening back, most of them are jewels decorating the wheels and not actually bearings.

Not a particularly outstanding watch.. just curious to know more about it. I thought the inflated jewel count was interesting.. but I am not a watch guy.. maybe it is not that unusual.
 
Posts: 2 | Location: Kingsland, Texas U.S.A. | Registered: October 08, 2004
IHC President
Life Member
Picture of Lindell V. Riddle
posted

Hi David,

WELCOME TO CHAPTER 185... you'll find a lot of friendly people here!

About over-jeweled, and non-functional jewels in watch movements, the all-time silliest one was probably a "100-Jewel" Waltham made in the 1950s. As you might image most of them served no real purpose. Seems they drilled 84 holes in the outer edge of the rotor and put 83 so-called "jewels" in 83 of the 84 holes. When you add the 83 around the rim of the rotor to the 17 in the ETA Movement you'll total the magical "100-Jewels" claimed for the watch.

Maybe they'd originally intended to claim "101-Jewels" and thought better of it! In fact the rotor itself is not jeweled in the center which of course would have been considered functional. The only purpose for all those "jewels" around the edge of that rotor might be to avoid momentary metal to metal contact if the watch were to be slammed hard.

I suspect your "59-Jewel" watch has an almost as silly an arrangement. As you are probably aware, anything over the 23 to 25-Jewel area in a normal automatic wristwatch watch is getting ridiculous. The legendary Webb C. Ball maintained that anything above 17 or 19-Jewels might actually be counter-productive in RR Time Service for 16 and 18-size Pocket Watches.

Hope the images to follow are interesting and helpful.

Again, welcome to our friendly group,

Lindell

Wink


An "83-Jewel" rotor from "100-Jewel" Waltham watch...


 
Posts: 10553 | Location: Northeastern Ohio in the USA | Registered: November 19, 2002
IHC President
Life Member
Picture of Lindell V. Riddle
posted

Ordinary ETA-1700 movement in "100-Jewel" Waltham...


 
Posts: 10553 | Location: Northeastern Ohio in the USA | Registered: November 19, 2002
IHC President
Life Member
Picture of Lindell V. Riddle
posted

In 1906 Webb C. Ball railed against "over-jeweling" of watches...


 
Posts: 10553 | Location: Northeastern Ohio in the USA | Registered: November 19, 2002
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