The Time, when IWC built movement replicas

There was a time, when the watches from Glashütte where the best in the Germany, or maybe even in the global market.

Julius Assmann, Moritz Großmann, F. A. Lange and Adolf Schneider founded 1878 the German Watchmaker School in Glashütte, a small town in Sachsen. Due to this fact, in a small area, the best centre for precision watch making in Germany has grown very well.

The quality of these watches was excellent. The basic contruction of this watches were ¾ plate movements with a spall plate for the escapement wheel.

It seems IWC wantet to profit from that Market and built a copy of this movement type. Even in the selling books it is marked Cal. Glashütte.

The below picture shows such a watch.

The movement inside is such a "Cal. Glashütte" movement, even marked "Glashütte bei Dresden / S.U.F" (S.U.F stands for "Schaffhausener Uhren-Fabrik")

There was also a "Open Face" version of this movement:

Best regards

Ralph

P.S.: A small "Sorry!" to all "not Pocket Watch fans" for filling up the forum with boring PW Threads, 1st of April 2013

Ralph,

Not boring at all!

Please Ralph, keep the posts coming. We all learn from you about the history and tradition of IWC.

Very nice Ralph. I always love these post with information about IWC's history!

Ralph, not boring at all.

But are you really, really sure that the engraving on the first movement is genuine;)

Somehow I think today is the anniversary of the day the engraving was made.

Beautiful watches, as always.

Best regards,

Henrik

Nobody shocked about it? No doubts ?

Regards

Ralph

Good morning this April 1st!

Nice story
/Anders

Thank you for showing.

Why is the second movement a mirror image of the first movement? Was this common? I checked the engraving to make sure it was not a picture mistake.

The case looks very nice. The movements look quite cheap in comparison, when compared to the richly finished movements of today, like the 98xxx movements. I guess this does not reflect the quality of the movements, though, but only a professional eye can see that.

Kind regards,
Paul

Pocket Watch April Fools post?

Mirror image?

Not quite. The upper movement is a hunter, they always have the crown at three o'clock. The second watch is a lepine, with the crown at 12.

In almost all PWs the second wheel from the balance turns once per minute and carries the seconds hand. But since a hunter and an open face watch is held differently the movememt has to be laid out differently to get the seconds hand in the desired position.

Best regards,

Henrik

Thanks for sharing Raplh. Why sorry, it is great to know more about IWC. Liked your post.
MK

As 1st of April is mostly over, I clear up thge situation:

No, it is not a 1st of April joke. Most of the Story is true.

For me the Story began some years ago, when I could see once some archive books. In my notes I took that day from that visit I found:

4. Februar 1893 6 Sav. Cal. Glashütte sold to Schmid & Krieg Cannstatt.
Cal. Glashütte = ???

IWC built 1891 to 1898
1'500 Sav. Cal. 61
1'500 Lep. Cal. 62

Most of this movements were marked "Unitas" and sold to "Heilbronner", and some differently as the "Cal. Glashütte" picture shows.

The picture shows 3 of this movements. (Now you also see the 1st of April cheat, I removed the "Unitas" in the lepine picture)

The movement is quite close to the 2nd version of the c.55/56 family, but has an additional bridge on the bridge to hold the Jewel ("Port. Châton")

Sorry for the bad picture I will add apetter one, asap.

regards

Ralph

I've had the chance to see some pieces produced by Glashütte. I rememeber in particular of a chronograph calibre whose architecture was clearly different to the classic adopted by Swiss watchmaking those times, but equally brilliant and terifically well crafted.

I wouldn't say German school ever had the supremacy though, both, for technology and execution. 1878 is just two years after the Favre-Perret report. Swiss watchmaking was ready to boost the industry towards higher standards, unbearable to anyone else but them.

Surely the piece posted represents an exquisite testimony of what could have happened if just German watchmaking industry didn't suffer of such a quick and dramatic abortion.

Great story, even better when true. One learn as long as one lives :-)

/Anders

Ralph,
Please feel free to "bore" us with your excellent IWC scholarship anytime you feel the spirit. I love to learn new things about my favorite watch company!

Ralph, AMAZING !!!

What a fantastic knowledge share - and as always we learn!

Ralph, thanks so much for sharing such incredible facts. I love each one of these posts, and learn so much of it.

I urge you ... please keep us "boring". Please keep these posts coming and share with us your incredible knowledge.

Ralph, I'm not a PW guy but found your post fascinating..
Thanks for sharing with us!