Waltham :: Info Help Please

[jtcastillo]

Can anyone tell me anything about this watch?
TIA
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b369/cjbjtc/Watches/Waltham/FRAN2006-03-05CA.jpg

[Ray MacDonald]

Can anyone tell me anything about this watch?
TIA
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b369/cjbjtc/Watches/Waltham/FRAN2006-03-05CA.jpg
I'd say it dates from the 1970s and would obviously be from Waltham's Swiss period after the American factory and company closed down.
It appears to be an electromechanical watch where a battery replaces the mainspring as a source of power. Hamilton electrics were similar models. It's not an Accutron or quartz type but has a balance wheel in all likelihood.
JohnF feel free to jump in here if you know more. :-S

[JohnF]

Hi -

Well I've seen contradicatory information on this one: one source says 1950-1960, the other 1970. I sincerely doubt the 1950-1960 source, since this would make the watch very significant, as there were few if any quartz watches around then. :-)

I found this from TimeZone in the archives (2004) from SQLGuy:

/begin quote
In these electromechanicals the timing of when to energize the coil(s) that push(es) the balance wheel is controlled by the balance wheel itself. In all of these movements there is a contact system that is closed when the balance swings past a certain point. So, the timing of the pulses is controlled by the balance's moment of inertia and the hairspring's spring constant.

I would guess that this Waltham and the previously mentioned Timex use a balance and hairspring that normally would give pretty good timing, but that the rate is fine-tuned by energizing the coil based on the quartz generated time pulse. This would be sort of similar to the Accuquartz, where the tuning fork provides a low Q rate and the specific frequency of osciallation is quartz controlled.

On the one hand, I would think these watches would be easy to get into a non-running state - if the balance's natural frequency was far off the crystal's enforced one (because of dry oil, hairspring damage or magenetism, etc), I would think they would "fight"; effectively stopping the watch or killing the cell pretty quickly. On the other hand, this type of a setup SHOULD provide more accurate timekeeping than a traditional balance-controlled watch, and the elimination of make/break contacts should make the whole system much more reliable.

/end quote

It's a dead-end technology, which could make it collectible if you are collecting dead-end technologies. :-)

This particular one seems to be in very clean shape, which is always good.

JohnF

[Hartmut Richter]

I would think that it could easily be from the fifties on technical grounds (but doubt it because of the style of the case - looks like late sixties to me). So-called electronic watches were present in the fifties, one of the main protagonists of this technology being Hamilton. Some examples can be seen in Gisbert Brunner/Christian Pfeiffer-Belli. Most of the Hamiltons have asymmetrical cases. They are not quartz, not even like the new Seiko Spring drive (quartz motor keeps a sort of balance wheel spinning in one direction only) but have some sort of electronic motor keeping the balance spinning to and fro. Still, I would agree that it's retrograde technology and not all that collectible these days.


Hartmut Richter