Cattin 66 (CLD)

Description

Cheap pin lever movements were often equipped with lots of jewels to reach the “magical” number of seventeen jewels. Those “17 Jewels” were originally a quality indicator of better pallet anchor movement, which were mostly superior to pin lever movements (except really good pin lever movements, as the Oris Chronometers). On a first glance, the Cattin 66 even looks like a good pallet anchor movement with the large dial bridge with the four jewels (no cap jewels!) and the jewel-beared balance with the inhouse shock protection.

But as soon as you look behind the scenes, particularily on the dial side, you are brought back down to earch:

On the “8” there are four completely useless jewels just put onto the plate (which is the reason, why “Korwina” subtracted them by their jewel calculation and printed only “17 Jewels” onto the dial). A further pair of useless jewels are located by the mainspring barrel, one can be seen on the photo, the other one is below the date ring.

To make it short - virtually this is a rather good 15 jewel pin lever movement of decent quality - a shock protection is for example not very often seen on pin-lever movements.

This movement uses a yoke winding and setting mechanism; the slowly advancing date has got a medium speed correction by turning the hands back and forth.

It’s a pity, that this movement uses the fake and dishonest six junk jewels, because originally, it is already a fairly well constructed pin lever movement, which works even after many years of use.

The Cattin 66 was also available in a version without date indication, but under the same name.

Technical data

Usage gallery