Stauffer - Peertone

Back in September 2004 the following watch was for sale on a well known internet auction site.

 



Movement  and case


While the dial is marked IWC, the case is not, and I was very curious about the movement. 

The movement does show some similarity in layout to the IWC Cal 87 movement.



The similarity on the left side of the movements is obvious but is it a variant of the IWC Cal. 87 or something else?

A lengthy search for a movement with the same layout as the Peertone yielded no results. It is often very difficult to identify a watch movement

from the back as changes to the bridges can significantly alter the appearance of the movement.

In March 2008 I recieved an inquiry about a Peertone movement but initially no watch or case images were available. Importantly both the back and the dial side of the movement were shown.




The movement can be identified from the setting parts for changing the time on the watch and the following is from Paulson.



The set piece lever/spring (shown on the upper left of each image)  of the Eterna/ETA 710 and the ETA 715 looks identical to the Peertone although the movement plates look closer to the later ETA 717/726.

An image of the Eterna 710 movement (from Jobin 1936) is shown below.



The dial side of the movement is all but identical to the Peertone and I think the Peertone movement is based on either the Eterna 710 or the ETA 710/715 (remember it was in the 1930's that the movement division of Eterna was seperated to form ETA). The setting parts are numbers 37 to 40 with the most identifable being number 40.

Is it coincidence the Stauffer/Peertone movement is found in the IWC dialed watch displayed at the begining of this article or did Stauffer use there own movements to case up some watches with IWC dials or is the watch a far more recent creation than the 1930's or1940's? At a guess, I think the dial of the watch has been replaced by a watchmaker at some point although I do not discount the possibility that the watch left Stauffer with the dial shown. The "3" seems faded in all the images so I would be surprised if the watch has been recently redialled.

In April 2008 I recieved a link to images of the case of the second watch.




The dial of this watch does not appear to be marked in any way and the case seems to read just "Staybrite Swiss Made" with no Stauffer markings.

The IWC and Eterna movements can be seen in the following composite image and it is very clear the

While the dial of the first watch maybe by IWC, the cases and movements shown have nothing to do with IWC and everything to do with Stauffer. There is always a risk that a seller will try to pass the entire watch off as an IWC by drawing a connection with Stauffer as an early IWC distributor, so be careful when you buy or ask a  question on the IWC Collector's Forum (on the IWC site) if unsure.