Saving a rare movement - from find to full restoration - Project LMS

Great story Mark!

Looking forward to the part II.

Regards
JK

That is a beautiful restoration. The photo essay was an educational opportunity for me. The watch looks pristine in the display case next to the other two. I'm looking forward to Part 2!

Well done Mark and congratulations. I wonder what Part 2 will bring...
Just one question, the double chevron and *2 are gone now, any reason or story behind?

Fascinating. Nice work and effort - yields a authentic result. Great post.

Hi, I am no expert by any stretch of imagination. So do pardon me if I am wrong.

The movement appears to me to have some Railway connection, possibly London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway, which was one of the big four railway companies of UK in the days of yore. It was tje done thing to have the Railway company name on the dial (I have many examples). Hence I would readily understand the eagerness to resalvage the movement. I would have done that for watches of my railway interest.

Though seems surprising for UK railway company to buy Swiss Pocket watches when they were mostly going for fusees. But again Elgin, Waltham, Record and Omega are also there so it has Swiss as well as American connection.

Shall await Part II.

Great story and great rescue. Nice to see the movement in its new case.
I love railway watches and look forward to Part II

Would the original have had an English made case or not? Nice restoration Mark, well done.

What a project.
The first thing that comes to my mind is that this work(plus part 2) should belong in the new section : "collectors articles", also as a tribute to Giovanni.
Secondly, I consider the comment of Saltuarius ( Allan) very important.
The ring as has been made new by mr. Philips in the UK was given me the concern that this was a part not made by IWC originally but by an at random British craftsman as there were many in the UK a century ago. But the explanation of Allan might be the clue to the question why nobody saw the smaller Seeland movement built in a larger case.
Well done Mark!,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).

Adrian, I wish to pickup on your justified comment, quote: "concern that this was a part not made by IWC originally but by an at random British craftsman"

I say justified, as its a lodgical conclusion to reach. In fact, this was my own thinking originally too - however, let me assure you that I have defiantly today no doubt as to the origins of that ring/movement. We know of, and both you and I have numerous examples in our collections of IWC pocket watches which have smaller ligne movements housed in larger cases where whilst well engineered these rings are clearly "spacers" where the movement is fixed to the ring by use of the case screws and those spacers easily slide/fit around the movements.

When we first stripped the movement down, three things were clear.

1) ring and main plate were both of the same base metal. In all other Iwc case/movement spacers I've seen, the spacers were always a different finish (and in many cases for some reason unknown to me, stamped with the marking "METAL").

2) that ring was not made to be removed from the main plate, to which it was in fact very cleverly "mounted" and secured by means of 3 blind brass set pins. You can see one of these pins, if you look at the 2nd picture I posted of the rear side of the movement, visible in the filed down edge on the left had side at the 10 o'clock position.

3)even after we had drilled out / removed those pins, the ring would not budge/come off. It was only after significant brain scratching by the two of us that I realized that that ring was "hot-set" - meaning it was heated to expand its circumference, allowing it to be placed around the main plate, then allowed to cool / shrink to fit. It was only after we heated it independently of the main plate, that the movement simply "dropped out" of the ring.

No doubts by the writer here, that that ring is "af Fabriek" meaning that it was manufactured and mounted by the original manufacturer of the movement and done so during the original manufacturing process.

Tom, indeed. But for that you will need to wait for part II.... The story behind the story :-)

Sorry

Mark, thank you for the brilliant story. Looking forward to the part II of it.

Cheers Chris

Thanks Mark for the additional information. As far as I know IWC used the word "METAL" just to indicated that the marked part was not precious such as gold or silver. One can often see that a golden case with front and back cover lid of the same precious metal, has an extra dust lid made of "METAL".
The same is true for "space rings" to reduce the size of the case inside.
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).