Donated watch: Ormo ladies' watch

(from Sigrid Schmiedel-Köster)

This Ormo ladies' watch was donated by Sigrid Schmiedel-Köster. It uses a cylinder movement from Felsa, which is quite remarkable, since this watch was probably produced in the 1940ies or 1950ies, to a time, when cylinder movements were obsolete long ago. Und even more remarkable is the marking “Cal. Felsa” on the dial, which should tell the buyer, that inside, there was a movement of the very familiar movement manufactury Felsa, which was at that time very popular, especially due to their Bidynator series.

The movement of this watch is a Felsa 90, which was made until the early 1950ies and which was one of the very last ever produced cylinder movements. With ten jewels and its tiny size, it resembled state of the art, except the escapement works: The cylinder balance, which was a rather imprecise device and often caused problems, was obsoleted long ago and replaced by common lever and pin-lever escapements, but not on this watch.

This Ormo watch is visually in a very good condition, which is quite rare on those tiny ladies' watches which were literally worn until they fall apart. Unfortunately, the movement does not work anymore, since the axle of the non shock-protected cylinder balance is broken. A fall from a low height is enough to make the balance break.