Certina 19-30

Description

Certina (also known as Kurth Frères and Grana) was always well-known for their high quality movements. The ladies' watch caliber Certina 19-30, which was launched in the late 1950s, was also part of these movement series.

It has got a diameter of 19.4mm (8 3/4 lignes) and, as the base plate, fully equipped with bearing rubies (except the mainspring barrel) shows, the smaller movements were of no less high quality than the large gents' watches' movements.

The gear train with its pretty filigree wheels is the conventional one: The mainspring barrel drives the center minute wheel, followed by third wheel, seconds wheel at 6 o’clock (with prolonged axle for a decentral seconds indication) and steel escape wheel.

Of course, a swiss pallet lever escapement is used.

A special highlight is the two-leg anular Glucydur balance, which is quite large and beats contemporarily fast with 19800 A/h.

Its precise frequency is adjusted with an excenter, a mechanism which is still used today in better quality movements.

As expectably, the Certina 19-30 uses a yoke winding system. Its setting lever spring is no longer secured by a screw, but by spring. For the 1950s, this was very modern, today, this is standard.

The outer side of the base plate and the briges are slanted, and at the outer mainspring barrel, the base plate is even opened, for saving some tenths of a millimeter of the, with a height of 3.6mm not really flat movement.

In the lab

Timegrapher result

Unfortunately, the timegrapher rates are not really good. A professional revision would for sure lead to results, which match the high quality of this movement with excenter fine-adjustment.

Technical data

Usage gallery