Sunday 27 March 2011

THE COLLECTION: Unknown Tissot movement

This is a movement I bought a few years ago. It is a ladies pocket watch movement, something that makes it ideal for a wristwatch project :-)
Even before disassembly, it appeared to be of very good quality. The layout is typically Swiss.

There was a surprise under the dial, the Tissot name. However, I have been advised that this is not
the Tissot. I would be very obliged if anybody could throw some light on this Tissot.

On barrel bridge we can see this 'HB' logo. Also, the regulator is marked 'fast-slow' as against 'avance-retard' which was more common on the continent.


It is evidently a good quality movement. It has a Breguet over-coil hairspring. The balance, lever & escape wheel pivots are capped on both sides.


An interesting feature is the side, English type of lever. This indicates an early date. Perhaps before the entire Swiss industry adopted the anchor escapement.
Every part reeks of quality. even parts that would only be seen by a watchmaker have been carefully finished.




This movement is fortunate to still have the Geneva stop-work intact. This is a feature little understood by watchmakers & was generally discarded during servicing.

The only real problem this movement had was with the balance. As you can see in the picture below, the roller table was miss-aligned and, indeed, loose.
... an easy fix on the staking set.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this beautiful movement. One day I will make a nice dress watch using it :-)

Aditya