Dürrstein ?

Description

The 12 1/4 ligne (27,8mm diameter) pillar movement of Glashütte type is not identifieable, but its execution and the font type of the serial number (11514) might be an indication for a Dürrstein and/or Glashütte origin.

This high quality movement uses rubies on all important bearings.

Please not the tiny hole left of the lever bearing: As common for movements from Glashütte, this hole bears the pin of the lever to control the maximal deflection of the lever.

The very elaborate escape wheel is made of a gold alloy.

The design of the lever made of gold alloy is quite typical of Glashütte: On the left (through Corrosion covered with verdigris) you can see the mandrel of the lever, through which the maximum deflection is limited.

And if you don’t look closely, you have the impression, that it consists of metal only, but …

… in between the metal, you see the two covered pallets of transparent jewels, probably sapphire.

And again, you can see the deflection pin.

The mainspring barrel has got a maltese cross, of which the second part is missing. If it was always missing, or if it is one of the generally missing parts of this incomplete specimen, is unknown.

The maltese cross is responsible, that the mainspring is never fully wound and never fully released, which increases the accurancy of the movement.

This movement uses the conventional gear train with directly driven center minute wheel, third wheel, seconds wheel at 6 o’clock and escape wheel.

The small diameter of this movement (too small for a normal pocket watch) and the position of the decentral seconds in a 90 degrees angle of the winding stem suggest, that it was used for a small ladies' pocket watch.

Of course, the Guillaume screw balance of this movement is not yet shock protected. In combination with the hairspring with bent end-curve, this it a top quality part and belongs to the best echappments, which were available at that time. This makes it even more surprising, that no manufacturer name or logo is engraved.

The minute wheel bearing even uses a chaton, as you can see on the three-quarter bridge (here with removed escape wheel bearing).

We have a double crown wheel here: On the under side of the bridge, it engages with the breguet clutch of the keyless works, on the upper side, it engages with the ratchet wheel.

Untypical for a movement of Glashütte origin, the ratchet wheel only has got a simple decoration.

Unfortunately, the case is missing, as well as the dial, and even the display works on the dial side is incomplete, but you can see the yoke winding system with its lever at 4 o’clock to select between winding and setting the hands. Not as on cheaper movements by pressing a lever, but by flipping a lever.

Finally

Unfortunately, even intense research, e.g. on the fantastic german website Glashuette - Uhrenproduktion mit Tradition - Uhrenhersteller und Uhrwerke aus Glashuette, it was not possible to doubtlessly find out the manufacturer of this high quality movement, but all indications point to an origin in the haze circle of Dürrstein / Union Glashütte.

Technical data