Cattin 54 (Ellipse)

Description

The french pin lever movement Cattin 54, here with balance wheel ellipse, is a rare movement, compared to other Cattin movements. It was available in different versions, with and without date and different number of jewels.

The base plate of this Roskopf-type pillar construction shows full usage of jewel bearings - this it not ubiquotous on pin lever movements.

The gear train shows the directly driven center second and the missing minute wheel, since the hands are both driven on the dial side by a slip clutch on the mainspring barrel.

The screw less anular balance beats slowly with 18000 A/h and is beared in two simple shock protections, which only protect axially. Unfortunately, this was not sufficient for the specimen shown here, whose balance wheel is broken, probably due to a hard hit.

It’s a bit odd, that the ratchet of the mainspring barrel is within the gear train, at 11 o’clock.

The crown wheel is on the inner side of the top gear plate, under which no less than four gears and the mainspring barrel are beared:

As common on Roskopf movement, the mainspring barrel has got a slipping clutch on top, whose two gears drive minute- and hour hand at the same time. Because of that, no further gears are neccessiary.

On the dial side, you see the yoke winding system (a bit unusual for pin lever movement) and the axial shock protection system for the balance wheel. At 10 o’clock there are two blue jewels, which have no use at all but to increase the number of jewels to the “magical” number of 17, which was a synonym for a high quality movement.

Technical data

Usage gallery