Hi there.
Newly accuired this Waltham so called 8 days deck chronometer. think this one is from an era when you could call them chronometer, isn´t it?

This has inner and outer box and the mvt with sn 17793016, (quite early one I think). It has a brequt over coil hairspring and the older simplier kind of reglator. The powere reserve is a so called of a "spot type". One screw holding tne movement is missing an so is the Waltham plate on the inner box even if I think there haven´t ever been one there.

My questions is:
Have this one been in military service or is it an exemple of one that stod in a jewelery shop window? How can you tell?

Are there any more information you can tell about it?

Thanks!

inner box

dial

mvt

And two more questions:

Does anyone have any experience servicing these? Are they hard to work with, asking becaus of the double barrels.

Also wonder what "Adjusted" on the barrel bridge actually means. I would guess 3 positions temperature and isochronism. Is that right?

Bernhard

Hi Bernard,

Some of these did see military service. If yours is one of them, it should have some sort of military markings on it.

These movements are not hard to work on. The two smaller mainsprings are easier to manipulate than one heavy one.

Best regards,
Greg

The first place to look for military markings is on the back of the case - there would be things there like the military serial number (which is quite different from the maker's serial number), the contract or order number, and sometimes other markings. The second place military markings are seen is on the dial but I do not see any of these on yours. The third and least common place to see them is on the movement itself, usually near the maker's markings, but again I do not see any on yours. The military has always been pretty careful about marking all of their timepieces like this not only for their internal inventory management requirements but also to make sure high value easily portable, easily saleable property does not wind up in the local flea market instead of being used for the purpose for which it was procured. The military would also usually attach a small data plate to the boxes as well. Are there any markings on the back of the chronometer's case or is there a data plate anywhere on the wooden box or evidence of holes where a data plate might have been affixed to the wooden box?