EB 1553

Description

The Ebauches Bettlach, which were notorious-famous in the 60ies and 70ies für their cheap and very simple constructed pin lever movements, made much better movements in their former times. Among these well made movements there’s the caliber EB 1553 shown here, which was made around 1960.

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The EB 1553 is a pin lever movement in the popular size of 10 1/2 lignes.

It’s easy to see, that all bearings, even that of the minute wheel, are equipped with rubies. The escapement wheel has got two additional cap jewels, second wheel and lever one each. In total, this leads to the popular number of “17 jewels”, which is perfect for advertising.

The minute wheel is beared under an own cock and driven by the mainspring barrel. This was a contemporary construction, as well, as the rest of the gear train with directly driven center second.

It’s only the shape of the escapement wheel, which distiguishes this movement from a swiss pallet lever movement.

The balance with its imitated screws (which have no functional impact, but are beautiful) is beared in two KIF Protechoc bearings and beats contemporarily slow with 18000 A/h.

You can see here, how the screw imitations were made, by cutting out lots of half circles from the balance ring. Lots of work for no functional impact. However, the lower side of the balance wheel looks a little more crude:

The cut out dots are the result of machine poising of the balance wheel, a process, which made screw balances obsolete in the 1960ies.

The dial side also looks very good. The rocking bar winding mechanism has got real springs and is really beautiful. Even the click mechanism consists not only of a simple spring, but has got a real ratchet.

The cap jewels give the impression of a costly movement, however the cap jewel of the lever axle (at 8 o’clock) is useless, since you never oil the lever axle bearing and hence need no cap jewel for retaining the oil here.

Technical data

Usage gallery