The movement archive

A large number of samples of the movement production heyday, the 20th century, is displayed here. Currenty, 1165 movements from 172 manufacturers wait for your discovery, and their number steadily increases. 877 movements are described in own, mostly very detailled articles.
Have fun!
 

Recent additions

24.09.2023
17jewels.info: Otero 794K

Otero 794K

One of the familiar selfwinding movements from Otero is the caliber 794K, whose suffix indicates the usage of a ball beared oscillating weight.

more....
16.09.2023
17jewels.info: Mauthe 612

Mauthe 612

A no less standard construction is the german Mauthe 612, also from the 1960s

more....
09.09.2023
17jewels.info: DuRoWe 1285

DuRoWe 1285

Without special features, this 11 1/2 ligne windup movement with date and center seconds indication was a reliable workhorse.

more....
02.09.2023
17jewels.info: Buser 36

Buser 36

As usual for Buser, the caliber 36 is an odd construction. Unfortunately it causes a lot of problems.

more....
27.08.2023
17jewels.info: Diehl 156 SC CLD

Diehl 156 SC CLD

It hardly can go cheaper than with this disposable pin lever movement from the 1950s, which Junghans produced in a joint venture with Westclox for their umbrella company Diehl.

more....
19.08.2023
17jewels.info: Judex 127B

Judex 127B

What might the inventors of this oddly constructed 10 1/2 ligne windup movement with center seconds might have been thinking?

more....
 

About the movement archive

In the past, especially between 1930 and 1980 more than 10.000 different movements were made, some in a million copies. The advent of the quartz watch in the 1970 terminated that impressive series, and the greatest part of those movements has not existed for a long time.

The movement archive on 17jewels.info should counteract further oblivion and show how diverse mechanical movements once were.

Of course it can never hole the complete stock of all movement ever made, yet almost every week, new movements are archived and shown more or less detailed. Currently, more than 1165 different movements found their way into the archive and are at at least virtually accessible to posterity.

You can directly access the movement by the “movements” menu.

Besides the movements there are other pages, which complement the topic “mechanical watches”, such as a collection of Timex watches, some loose articles in the magazine, a few documents and some workbench related articles.

The archive lives from permanently acquiring yet unarchived movements, to catalogue and put them online. Who wants to support it with a small dontion, can get a “supporters” page as thanks.

Have fun exploring the world of mechanical movements!