What do the markings on the movement mean?
Many earlier watches were not cased at the factory. With only a few exceptions, the watch movements were made to industry standard sizes and cases were made to those same sizes. Only a few of the companies that made the watch movements also made the cases, and when they did, they would frequently be sold separately. A person would go to the jewelry store, select the make and grade (quality) of the movement they desired, and then pick out a case, or perhaps they would choose a certain quality of case and then use the balance of their budget on the movement. The jeweler would then assemble the two in a matter of moments. Even when watches were cased at the watch factory, the same model case might be fitted onto any variety of movements, or the same model/grade of movement would be put in a variety of cases. Whichever set of circumstances occurred, the best documentation available is for the movements, not the cases. Thus it is through the movement that a watch’s identification can be mad
