IWC
20 February 2019
Description

IWC all steel back cover does not know how to open. Is it open or unscrewed?

Provenance

Japanese Auction

Acquired from
Auction House
For sale
Maybe
Answered within about 4 hours
By David
Feb 20, 23:12 UTC
Fair Market Value
$500 - $600 USD
Insurance Value $0 USD
What does this mean?

Hello Jinzhe Li,
Thank you for the third time today for allowing mearto to help appraise your pocket watch. It will be rather difficult since I do not know the size of the watch nor can I see the inside of the cover or movement. Usually on these pocket watches the back covers are either unscrewed with the palm of your hand while pressing down firmly, or they are opened with a sharp blade like shucking oysters. If you try that be very careful, wear gloves so that you do not get cut. Again, there is usually a point on the edge of the back cover where you will see scratches from other attempts to pop it open. If there re no scratches then it probably just unscrews like the lid of any bottle. You can always walk into a jeweler and ask him to take off the back cover.
TITLE:
Gent’s silvered steel, manually wound, open face pocket watch with silvered chain and silvered money clip, watch made by the International Watch company, Schaffhausen, Switzerland, circa 1930s-1940s. Accompanied by a green IWC leather case. (Dial repainted.)
Description:
Made in the later Art Deco style this is a three leaf, silvered steel open face pocket watch with a suppressed fluted ball pendant and round bow placed at the twelve position and attached to a serpentine flexible circa 1940s era watch chain with a guilloche silvered money clip also made in the style seen in the 1930’s-40s. The back of the case is simply polished and not engine turned or engraved. . .
The dial is cream colored and has elevated silvered Arabic hours. It is obvious to me that some of the numbers are impacted by a repainting of the dial color with the 12 and 1 covered in paint and many other numerals spotted with paint. (This is a major negative factor in pricing unfortunately.) There is a dotted minute ring and a subsidiary dial for continuous seconds. There are steel Feuille hands. The dial is signed International Watch Company Schaffhausen and I have to assume that has been repainted. . .
The movement is not shown. I cannot guess at the caliber because this company made so many different levels of movements but it is probably a fully jeweled, straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, and swan-neck regulator. It should be signed in gold incised lettering for IWC Schaffhausen and numbered and have the caliber visible. . .
The fact that the watch is silvered steel and not gold reduces the value immediately. In pristine condition it would bring about $1200, and now with the repainted dial it would likely sell at less than half of that.
At any rate, thank you again for using the Mearto service. We appreciate your efforts and I have tried my best to provide you with fair market value prices.
Best regards,
David

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