Sunday, December 14, 2025

AUTHENTIC VINTAGE MONARCH ARTDECO HIDDEN LUGS GENTS WRISTWATCH















AUTHENTIC VINTAGE MONARCH ARTDECO HIDDEN LUGS GENTS WRISTWATCH

MADE IN/BUATAN: SWISS
CIRCA/TAHUN: 1930'S
MODEL: ARTDECO
CRYSTAL/CERMIN: ACRYLIC CRYSTAL
MOVEMENT/ENJIN: 17 JEWELS PESEUX CAL. 112 MANUAL WINDING MOVEMENT 
DIAL COLOR: BLACK TWO TONE GOLD AND DARK ORANGE GOLD TONE BLACK ARABIC MARKERS
FUNCTION/FUNGSI: HOUR, MINUTE AND SUB SECOND AT 6:00
HANDS/JARUM: ORANGE COLOR DAUPHANE HANDS
MARKERS/TANDA WAKTU: GOLD TONE BOLD ROMAN MARKERS


AUTHENTIC VINTAGE ILLINOIS STEWART GENTS WRISTWATCH




















AUTHENTIC VINTAGE ILLINOIS STEWART GENTS WRISTWATCH
MADE IN/BUATAN: USA
CIRCA/TAHUN: 1920's
MODEL: ILLINOIS STEWART
CRYSTAL/CERMIN: SCRATCH FREE ACRYLIC CRYSTAL
MOVEMENT/ENJIN: ILLINOIS LADY STEWART 15 JEWELS MANUAL WINDING MOVEMENT GRADE 34
DIAL COLOR: WHITE CREAM
FUNCTION/FUNGSI: HOUR, MINUTES AND SUB SECOND AT 6:00
HANDS/JARUM: LUMINOUS BLUE METAL HANDS
MARKERS/TANDA WAKTU: LUMINOUS ARABIC MARKER
CASING : 10K GOLD RGP
BEZEL: 10K GOLD RGP
LUGS: 20mm
MEASUREMENT/UKURAN: 32mm DIAMETER w/o CROWN and 35mm LUG TO LUG
DITANDA/ENGARVED BACK CASING: NONE
CROWN: ORIGINAL UNSIGNED ONION CROWN
STRAP/TALI: GENUINE GOLD PLATED STRECTH BANDS
SIZE STRAP/SAIZ TALI: 8.5" FULL LENGHT
CONDITION: WORKING AND KEEPING TIME, EXCELLENT CONDITION
MY PRICE/HARGA :USD300 (NEGOTIABLE)
LIST USD300 SOLD USD

BRIEF HISTORY OF ILLINOIS WATCHES

Illinois Watch Factory
Illinois Watch Factory
The Illinois Springfield Watch Company was organized in 1869 primarily through the efforts of J. C. Adams. The first company Directors were J. T. Stuart, W. B. Miller, John Williams, John W. Bunn, George Black and George Passfield.
John Stuart was a Springfield lawyer and former partner of Abraham Lincoln. John Williams was president of the First National bank of Springfield. William B. Miller was a local merchant. John B. Bunn owned a grocery business.
Though the first movements were produced in 1872, the company really didn't achieve full production until 1875. By serial number, the first watch made was the "Stuart" model, followed in order by the "Mason," Bunn," "Miller," and finally the "Currier. The first stem-wind watch was produced in 1875. The early Illinois models were key-wound and key-set and are quite collectible today. Illinois later produced an extensive line of extremely fine and accurate Railroad-grade pocket watches like the "Sangamo Special," "Bunn Special" and "Santa Fe Special" (just to name a few).
Illinois: A Great American Watch Since 1870
Illinois: A Great American Watch Since 1870
In 1879, due to financial difficulties, the company was reorganized and the name changed to the Illinois Springfield Watch Company. By 1885 the company name was changed yet again to the Illinois Watch Company.

Purchased by Hamilton

The Illinois Watch Company was purchased by Hamilton Watch Company in 1927, but continued to produce Illinois watches under Hamilton management until 1932 (the year the last "true" Illinois watch was made). Hamilton continued producing Illinois watches in the Hamilton factory until 1939.
The Illinois Watch Company produced watches under contract for several different brands, including Burlington Watch Company (Chicago, Illinois) which operated primarily as a mail-order business, and Santa Fe Watch Company (Topeka, Kansas). There is some question as to whether Burlington was actually a subsidiary of Illinois. Watches produced under the Burlington name include some very fine (including some railroad grade) watches, which are nearly identical to Illinois movements. Illinois also produced watches for the Plymouth Watch Company (Sears Roebuck) and the Washington Watch Company (Montgomery Ward).

AUTHENTIC VINTAGE ENGLISH SMITHS ACME LEVER H.SAMUEL MILITARY STYLE GENTS WRISTWATCH


















AUTHENTIC VINTAGE ENGLISH SMITHS ACME LEVER H.SAMUEL MILITARY STYLE GENTS WRISTWATCH 
CIRCA 1940'S
SILVER COLOR DIAL WITH SUBSECOND AT 6:00
ACCRYLIC CRYSTAL IS CLEAN WITH NO CRACK OR SCRATCHES
ENGLISH MADE 15 JEWEL SMITHS CAL.12.15 MANUAL MOVEMENT
LUMINOUS BLACK COLOR METAL HANDS
RAISED ARABIC MARKERS
CHROME FINISH TOP AND  STAINLESS STEEL BACK CASE MEASURES APPROXIMATELY 35mm EXCLUDING THE CROWN AND 38 mm LUG TO LUG
SS UNSIGNED CROWN
18 mm LUG SIZE
NEW BLACK WITH BROWN TRIM LEATHER BAND FITS 7.5" WRIST
DISCONTINUED MODEL... RARE
EXCELLENT CONDITION, GOOD WORKING CONFITION
PRICE OFFER FOR USD220

The History of English Smiths Wristwatches

Smiths wristwatch history began in 1939 when Cheltenham factory was asked to produced watches for the war. By the end of 1939, Smiths produced 8,000 jewelled lever escapements every week. They were able to supply the military with a pocket watch and chronograph pocket within three years.

Within this period, Smiths managed to produce a cheap range of ‘pin-pallet’ watches marketed as Smiths Empire and also high quality wristwatches to compete with Swiss wristwatches. All Smith watches were produced at Bishops Cleeve factory in Cheltenham. One of the man behind the successful of Smith was Robert Lenoir, a Swiss trained watchmaker who lived in England after the First World War. Lenoir provided the impetus behind Smiths improvement in the design and finish of their work and which finally led to production of a high-grade wristwatch in 1945. Lenoir had been the person in charge of the Jaeger Instrument company in England. That's made many collectors/researchers believed that Jaeger-LeCoultre were involved in the design of Smiths which were not true.

In 1951 Smiths had changed their typically English looking movement with frosted and gilded plates to the new movement of ‘12.15’ calibre - 12 ligne in size (26 mm in diameter) and 15 jewels. This movement which fitted to their De Luxe model was a great success for The Smith Watches. Smiths gained very much needed publicity when Sir Edmund Hillary wore a De Luxe watch on his historic ascent of Everest in 1953, and became a major of Smith advertising campaigns.


Tuesday, December 2, 2025

AUTHENTIC VINTAGE BUREN ARTDECO MEN'S WRISTWATCH

 













AUTHENTIC VINTAGE BUREN ARTDECO MEN'S WRISTWATCH


BRAND/JENAMA: BUREN

MADE IN/BUATAN: SWISS

CIRCA/TAHUN: 1950's

MODEL:  ARTDECO

CRYSTAL/CERMIN: ACCRYLIC - CLEAN

MOVEMENT/ENJIN: BUREN 17 JEWELS AUTOMATIC WINDING INHOUSE MOVEMENT BUREN CAL.4

DIAL COLOR: CHAMPAGNE

FUNCTION/FUNGSI: HOUR, MINUTE, SWIPE CENTER SECONDS

HANDS/JARUM: LUMINOUS GOLD COLORED METAL HANDS

MARKERS/TANDA WAKTU: RAISED GOLD ARABIC MARKERS

CASING : 10K GOLD FILLED PLATED TOP SPIDER LUGS/STAINLESS STEEL BACK

LUGS: 16mm

MEASUREMENT/UKURAN: 33mm DIAMETER EXCLUDING CROWN and 35mm LUG TO LUG

DITANDA/ENGARVED BACK CASING: -WATER 10KRGP~STAINLESS STEEL BACK~AUTOMATIC

CROWN: GP

STRAP/TALI: BLACK LEATHER BAND

SIZE STRAP/SAIZ TALI: 8.5"

EXCELLENT CONDITION, WORKING, KEEPING TIME, DISCONTINUED MODEL

PRICE/HARGA: USD350 (NEGOTIABLE/BOLEH DIRUNDING)

BRIEF HISTORY OF BUREN WATCHES

Buren was named after the location of is initial start up at a little village in Switzerland called Buren, located on the banks of the Aare. The firm started in 1842 making watch parts. In 1873, Buren started making complete watches and called themselves F Suter & Co.

F Suter & Co. continued with varying success to make watches with the trade name of 'Buren' for several years until it was taken over by the British firm of H Williamson Ltd in 1898.

>H Williamson Ltd, specifically bought the Buren factory to supply Swiss parts for the watches he was making in the UK. This later lead to a court case where he was found guilty of selling 'English Made' watches with Swiss parts in them. While H Williamson Ltd owned the Buren brand, they generally allowed the company to continue on its own with them just being the Parent company and receiving parts from them.

By 1905, Buren were making 500 watches a day. Many of them for the parent company, but some were sold in Germany and the USA under the Buren name.

By 1949, Buren were back producing 22 different calibers for watches. In 1954, they patented the mini-rotor for automatic watches. This was a major achievement as the smaller rotor meant that it could be sunk flush with the watch movement, so making automatic watches a lot slimmer than they had been - just under 3mm in fact.

In 1966, Hamilton Swiss acquired the Büren Watch Company in Switzerland, including all factories and technologies that had been developed by Büren up to that point. From 1966 to 1969, Hamilton Lancaster and Buren Switzerland were operated as a joint concern, with Hamilton using a number of Swiss movements for their "American" watches and Buren utilizing a number of components manufactured by Hamilton Lancaster. It was during this time that Hamilton started to selectively incorporate the highly innovative Buren Microtor (aka Micro Rotor/Microrotor) movement into small numbers of certain upper tier watches (in addition to their ordinary hand-wind and traditional automatic watches).

The Buren (now Hamilton/Buren) Microtor was the first patented automatic wristwatch movement to eliminate the sizable external oscillating weight inherent to most automatic winding watches. Instead, it utilized a much smaller weight that was entirely integrated into the chassis of the movement. This design allowed for a substantially slimmer automatic watch that still retained a center sweep second hand. The Microtor concept was also conceived by Universal Geneve for use in their famous Polerouter series of timepieces during this same time. The official title of "first Microtor movement" is still in dispute amongst some horology aficionados, even though Buren patented their design in 1954 while Universal Geneve applied for their patent in May of 1955

In 1969, the Hamilton Watch Company completely ceased its American manufacturing operations with the closure of its factory in Lancaster, PA, shifting the entire balance of its manufacturing operations to the Buren factory in Switzerland.

From 1969 to 1972, all new Hamilton watches were produced in Switzerland by Hamilton's Buren subsidiary. In 1971, the Buren brand was returned to Swiss ownership and by 1972, the Buren-Hamilton partnership was dissolved and the factory liquidated, due to decreased interest and sales of the Hamilton-Buren product.