A IWC chronograph

Dear Ralph,
we do not know yet if the numbers of case/movement are identical.
Werner Berghaus tells us that there is a gap of about 2000 numbers in the archives (case control books) and the number of case of one of this chronographs (we know five or six) fitted exactly into this gap!

Dear Giovanni,
dear Ralph,

I myself for the moment have more questions than answers on this chronographs.

1) That those case Nos. fit in a gap of several thousand case Nos. not assigned is not decisive. There are several such gaps and the reason for these gaps is, that IWC sold many movements without cases, especially to France, the UK and the US. The gaps have been inserted to avoid big differences between case and movement No. The gaps were not intended to create spaces for third party watches.
2) We know some minute and quarter repeaters in cases signed IWC (Probus Scafusia) with case Nos. not consistent with the normal number range of IWC cases which show up in the sales books. It appears IWC bought complete, already cased watches and traded them. But these watches are not only signed IWC in the case, but as well on the dial. Why are these chronographs not signed "IWC" on the dial?
3) Stauffer at the time was one of best customers of IWC. Stauffer, owned by Nicolet, partly bought movements later on cased in the UK and complete watches including the case. But Stauffer never signed one of their watches bought from IWC as IWC. They sold them branded peerless. This changed no earlier than in the early 1930ies, when Ed. Harrop took over the role as general importer for the UK. I don't see the reason, why Stauffer should have acted against their own rules. Indeed they sold a lot of these chronographs in the UK, but they were brandes with the name of their customer, peerless or were not branded at all. Why should Stauffer introduce the brand IWC when with all other IWC they decided to use their brand peerless or no brand?
4)The hint on the Gordon Bennnet race probably indicates the watch was sold in the Commonwealth. Stauffer at the time was the general importer for the commonwealth. What is the sense to sell chronographs from Stauffer to IWC and to resell it from IWC to Stauffer ending up in the Commonwealth? Stauffer would leave profit with IWC as they had the chronograph movements and regularly sourced cases elsewhere.

For that reason I consider it more plausible (but far from proven) that originally case and movement did not belong together.

Just my two cents!

Th. König

Hello Thomas.

Thank you for your two cents :-)

You opinion covers mostly what I thought when I saw first the pictures of this post, and having the watch deep down in my collection. But now, having two mostly identical watches I had some doubts if I could be wrong. I am shure both watches are fully original Nicolet, with it's identical case and movement number. My only question is, how, why and when the "International Watch Co" Medals engraving from 1906 came into the cases.
I think, this watches where not for the Commonwealth market, but for other, probable IWC customers, who wanted a Chronograph. IWC kept the original serial numbers not consistent to the IWC-numbers, as it was for other early complicated Pocket watches.

I think both numbers 231'739 and 232'7494 are in the books, but for other IWC-watches where the can be found.
Many years ago I had checked mine (231'739) in the archives, when we had the chance to go there. My conclusion was then, that mine is a "Fake" / "recased" what ever. It showed up a as c.IWC 19". So it went to the bottom of my watch stock.

But now having case and movement with the same serial number I think they belong together. There are some mechanical restrictions of the movement, that it does not fit in an c.IWC case (The pin to set the time is not at the correct position).
In addition I compared the "Medals" engraving with that one of other IWC-Watches.
It loocks quite identical. (I dont thik it is coined in, it is at least partially engraved)

An other thing:
One known gap is at 318'003 and 320'000 where one other chronograph (in gold) is placed 318'100. (I know only one in the gap). That one has a dial "International Watch Co" marked and a case wears the "probus scafusia" hallmark.
1905 the gap between case and movement number was around 20-30'000. But the case numbers where higher, so why to make a gap of 2000 in adition. I think we will never know the reason for this 2000 numbers gap. In additon it is a pitty some of the books are missing, but betweem 230'000 and 233'000 the number are complete when I remeber correctly when we looked for 231'379.
The reason for the difference is from my point of view, IWC sold watches with Jones, Seeland, c.28 /c.29 (à Bascule à Pillier) movements and had at the beginning of the numbering before 1885 double numbering of the movements but not of the cases..

IWC Collectos as you (snd D. Seyffer from the museeum) worked lot to find more facts on the history of IWC. But we always find some more question marks as this chronographs.

When 5 of the chronographs ar know, it would be interesting to get the numbers of the other remaining 2 also.

Keep searching and kindest regards

Ralph Ehrismann

Hallo Thomas
Thank you for your questions.

The two watches reproduced are essentially identical, although they probably have different stories and backgrounds. In my opinion it is reasonably excluded that case and movement did not originally belong together.

1) The layout of hallmarks is typical of Stauffer/IWC of that era, with Swiss case in silver 935 and movement IWC/Peerless. Here are some examples:
[](s1069.photobucket.com/user/costi92/media/_57-1-2.jpg.html)
[](s1069.photobucket.com/user/costi92/media/_57-2-1.jpg.html)
It would be important verify on the records if any trace remains of these chronographs.

2) It is not surprising, that have not been signed on the dial. This is typical of the majority of IWC watches of this period. Quarter and minute repeaters were produced by other brands (certainly Le Coultre) and comply with different rules.

3) It is true that the Stauffer/IWC are never signed IWC. In this case, Stauffer introduced the brand IWC when with all other IWC they decided to use their Peerless brand, but only because these watches were not necessarily directed to United Kingdom and Colonies market. My watch comes from Argentina (although it does not mean that it was sold in Argentina).

4) The hint on the Gordon Bennnet race not indicates the watch was sold in the Commonwealth. Gordon Bennett offered the Automobile Club de France (ACF) a trophy to be raced for annually by the automobile clubs of the various countries. The Gordon Bennett Cup races are not connected to the United Kingdom and its Colonies, but it was an international competition held in several European countries.

Fascinating discussion by some world class experts. Keep digging gentlemen to our general enlightenment.

Dear Giovanni,

An interesting discussion for sure, and one for which I haven't commented due to my being on holiday. I also do 't know the answers here, but I beg to differ with you on two points:

1. I very much disagree when you wrote: "It is not surprising, that have not been signed on the dial. This is typical of the majority of IWC watches of this period." My experience has been the opposite, by far.

2. I also disagree with the hypothesis that the two close case numbers show that the movement/cases were originally paired. They equally could have been "secondarily paired": some cal. 53 watches were sold to Stauffer or some cases were reused by Stauffer. The proximity tends to show that Stauffer used them as a group, but not that they left Schaffhausen that way with those movements (certainly the cases were "processed" with additional engravings by Stauffer or its agent).

By the way, I find it interesting your watch came from Argentina. Mine has the Spanish spelling "internacional" on the dial, and I have heard by way of rumor that these watches were sold to the South American market, including with other brand's signatures.

Dear Giovanni,
dear Ralph!

As part of another research I had the chance to look through the complete sales records for the period here in question.
(i) All watches sold are shown there including those, who have movements not made by IWC but sourced from third parties and those having case Nos. not consistent with the IWC system. By now I have more than 100 such watches in a database amongst a few Stauffer chronographs (which are described as Stauffer in the books). I found no one in the range of case Nos. your two watches have. For sure I missed some interesting (not neccessarily complicated) watches as it is very exhausting to go through thousands of pages. But if there has been a bigger number of such watches from that range of case Nos. I would not have missed all.
(ii) If your two watches are "identical" and from one batch, this batch would have had a size of (232,474 minus 231,379 =) roughly 1,100 pieces. I assume we can exclude that. So if all original, they belong to not one but two batches.
(iii) What is possible (but possible, plausible and proven are three different terms) that IWC ordered chronographs from Stauffer and had them cased with Stauffer cases instead of putting up a production of these cases for these movements in Schaffhausen with the help of the local IWC case suppliers. On delivery from Stauffer IWC re-saled the watches to markets, Stauffer was not active on.
(iv) The gaps in the case numbering are as great they can't be reserved for complicated watches from third party manufacturers, as the range of only one gap by far outnumbers the number of complicated watches sold by IWC. And in addition nearly all complicated watches with non-IWC movement Nos. have case Nos. not out of one these gaps, but out of the normal range of numbers, so that another watch with the same case No. exists.

Regards

Th. Koenig

Dear Thomas,

Thank you for your statement and valuable information.
I fully agree your statemens.

I think the gap in case numbering were just an error or an random:
The books had to be ordered and maybe a wrong "start number" was indicated, or someone wanted to start with a round number, every book holds 20'000 cases, so a start with a number which fits to the grid was looked for.

For me the question is, to what time period we have to assign this 2 watches.

IWC used the "Prand Prix Milan 1906 " marking quite a while. . The lates case I have acessible now is Case # 644'086 from 1912.
Maybe someone will find eve higer case numbers with the "Milan 1906" marking.

So the time period for this watches can be 1906 to 1912. A huge period to look through.

Just a side question to Thomas: in the King book, it was written: foreign number are written in red, have you seen some red numbers?

Many thanks an have a nice weekend.

Ralph

Dear Ralph!

(i) I checked the sales records entry by entry for a much longer span of time than 1906 to 1912. The job took more than 10 years and aimed at building a database of all IWC Quality Extra, but of course I run as well into antimagnetics, complicated watches etc and noted what I found. With respect to complicated watches the result were those slightly more than 100 complicated watches (chronos and repeaters), which are noted in the sales records (besides machinery sold, war materiel produced for the Swiss Army etc. etc.)
(ii) It appears that IWC started to (re-)sell watches produced by third parties to wholesalers and retailers no earlier than in late WW I. Up to then such watches (especially chronographs of different brands, e.g. Matthey-Tissot) were sold only to Eisenwerke Georg Fischer, linked to IWC by the Homberger family, and to entrepreneurs of the Schaffhausen area, in other words to end users with special relations to IWC.
(iii) In the sales records there are no entries in red for Non-IWC-cases. I do not know any regulation, when entries were to be made in red. From my observations my educated guess is, these were cases made by IWC which on special request of the customer got a case number assigned, which already had been assigned to another case in the past. For example the Royal Navy fishtails got IWC cases, but on request of the Royal Navy case Nos. which already had been assigned to civilian IWC watches towards the end of WW I. Another example is a civilian fish tail originally sold in a silver case. Later on the owner asked for a gold case with the same case No.
(iv) Although Stauffer chronos in general (sold by Stauffer in quantities to UK police and other authorities as well as under the brand of Stauffer customers) are not my focus, my feeling is these Chronos were sold from about 1900 up to the end of WW I. After WW I obviously the counter-clockwise minute register was no longer state of the art and accepted by the market.

Regards

Th. König

Great Stuff...

I a keep waiting you publication cpncerning the "Qual Extra" and other IWC specialities.

regards

Ralph

Dear Michael,

1) It seems to me absolutely certain that the case and the movement of the two watches originally belong together. It is uncertain, however, if the watches were produced in Schaffhausen using a Stauffer movement or whether they were produced by Stauffer in La Chaux-de-Fonds on behalf of IWC. In my opinion this is the only uncertainty to clarify, if possible, through the registers.

2) The dials are normally signed after the '20s, but in the period 1906-1912, which is the period of production of these watches, it is very frequent, as is well known, finding unsigned IWC on the dial.

Hi Michael,

Your watch IWC's Earliest Chronograph? shown below

With its Illinnois Watch Case Co case may have been cased in Switzerland, 1905 data (I haven't found later numbers, but I do have earlier) shows more than 74,000 US cases imported into Switzerland, from La Classification Horlogere May 1906

The numbers do show both silver and gold to be small volumes.

The Illinois Watch Case Co. did advertise their cases in La Classification Horlogere in February 1912.

and also in La Classification Horlogere in April 1914

These advertisments would have been an attempt to get Swiss watch makers to use their cases, either in Switzerland or in the USA if the movements alone were exported.

Cheers from the cellar

Hi Greg

Here I have some doubts if the case was originally assigned to this movement.
The movement itself was possibly ordered by IWC and earlier cased in a gold case. It could be the sister of 318'100. South America is also OK, But the case does not fit the movement. (Also the pin to set the time seems to be strangly oriented...)

What is the movement number of that one?

Kind regards

Ralph

Hi Ralph,

Watch number 318100 with movement 270638 was show on Fritz Wagener's excellent site many years ago and is reproduced below for those who have not seen the images.

I'm fairly sure the movement on MF's watch (I couldn't find an image posted by him, and no doubt he will post on return from his holiday) is 270636 as shown by Fritz below.

The movement on the left, 270636, certainly doesn't cleanly fit the case.

Cheers from the cellar

Dear Greg

Thank you for the number. They are so close they were sold or at leas manufactured together. So I Think there is at least the 270637 also.

And just a remark. The watch which was shown on Fritz Wagners homepage was never his watch ...

Kind regards

Ralph
Ralph

Excellent top class research Gentleman - I for one, very very pleased we have all our wise men back here and posting on this fascinating subject.

Hello! I'm new on this site. I had recently purchased the following IWC chronograph. Here are a couple of pics. I'd very much appreciate it if you would comment below what are your thoughts on this item. 

Hello Dan and welcome. Very cool chronograph - maybe more has been learned since the last discussion about this mysterious watch. This movement looks like it fits the case quite well.