Monday 2 September 2013

Watch Movement Cufflinks - Part 1

I started with collecting cufflinks and gradually started to appreciate watches. So I thought it made sense to collect watch movement cufflinks. And the journey began...

Up until 5 years ago, such watch movement cufflinks were hard to come by. Today with the proliferation of social media, blog shops and Amazon, there are many such cufflinks to be found - some pretty good. Some of these are my earlier year collection which is housed in a red leather box. This is the first part of a two part report on some of the cufflinks in this collection.
 photo BareWatchMovementTray01.jpg

As you can see, many of these are old vintage movements, stripped and cleaned before being mounted onto a cufflink blanks. Some of these come with matching movements while some are not. But what is interesting is that many brands use similar watch movements.

This Berthoud movement cufflink is mounted onto a cufflink blank that is also a small locket.
 photo BareWatchMovement02.jpg

A rectangular Elgin movement - each finished differently. The one on the right is ribbed while the one on the left is unfinished. But both similar movements.
Watch Movement Cufflinks Elgin photo BareWatchMovement03.jpg

A pair of identical Gruen movement mounted on a flower cufflink blank.
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks Gruen photo BareWatchMovement01.jpg

A pair of identical Bulova movement. Many of these movements come with balance wheel and all the barrels and wheels intact.
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks Bulova photo BareWatchMovement04.jpg

And a pair of identical Hamilton movement - presumably calibre 757.
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks Hamilton photo BareWatchMovement05.jpg

A pair of identical movements but from different brands - heard of Imperial or Royce watch company? Unfortunately, the movements are not well kept. I should find time to polish them and try to restore them to their old glory.
Watch Movement Cufflinks Imperial & Royce photo BareWatchMovement06.jpg

A well mounted rectangular movement for watch company Berman. A Swiss movement for an American watch brand.
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks Berman photo BareWatchMovement07.jpg

A mechanical Timex movement - for a ladies timepiece I guess.
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks Timex photo BareWatchMovement08.jpg

An un-named movement - rather pretty though.
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks photo BareWatchMovement09.jpg

And a well decorated Bulova movement - perlage. Rather flat movement which I can imagine was housed in a flat case - flat for those days...
Bare Watch Movement Cufflinks Bulova photo BareWatchMovement10.jpg

In all, I supposed I have about 200 pairs of watch movement cufflinks of all kinds. I have also started making some on my own - buying movements off eBay, cleaning them and mounting them. I had posted an earlier post - check out the report. Stay tuned for more to come.

No comments:

Post a Comment