Spring Break Fixes

College has been the most fun and rewarding time in my life thus far. Whether it's meeting new (lifelong) friends or taking classes with phenomenal professors, my time here is certainly worth the heavy, heavy costs of tuition. When it comes to watch repairing, however, I didn't even bother bringing my tools to school with me. I have only found time to fix watches when I return home for break, which I finally did a few weeks back. I fixed close to ten watches, but the two I have pictured below are really the only ones worth sharing.

First up, we have a Henry Sandoz 5-minute repeater with chronograph. This was easily the most complicated movement I have ever come across, with well over a hundred pieces. The more complicated the more fun to fix! For those of you who aren't familiar with 5-minute repeaters, they function similarly to quarter repeaters. The primary difference is the center snail - quarter repeaters have four slots while five-minute repeaters have twelve. Because of the different center snail, 5-minute repeaters chime the hour and then the closest 5-minute interval. For example, if the time is 3:15, the watch will chime thrice for the hours and thrice for each 5 minutes past the hour.

Sandoz Family Crest with "sine dolo"

And second, an American fusee movement. I jumped on the opportunity to purchase this watch because the average American fusee movement is considerably rarer than the average European fusee movement. Why? Elgin, Waltham, Illinois, etc. all dominated to American pocket watch market, and the large majority of the movements they made were not fusee movements. Movements like the one here by J.W. Tucker & Co. were of higher quality and, as a result, lower in production quantity.

I have more watches waiting to be fixed, but those will be for another post.