| Re: The caliber 157 [message #12541 is a reply to message #12538] |
Thu, 11 June 2020 03:01   |
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Case
Messages: 1178
Registered: May 2019
Location: Cincinnati
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Gruen Authority |
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Awesome, Jack! Thanks very much for sharing these. I think you are correct that 157 & 179 share the same movement number series. Looking at how the low # 157s trickled out from 25- 27, I can’t help but wonder if they were just very poor sellers. Gruen seems to have loaded up on movements in 1925, then spent 2 years working them off. I have a few 200k & 300k noted—very few compared to the 100k—then the jump to 1mm.
On to the Gruen-Wadsworth “patents pending” stamped cases that you showed: those are the keys to dating the 5MM Wads case # jump (planning to go there next on the case # thread). They reference not Gruen patents, but Wadsworth. Two of them, filed on the same day in September 1925. These cases were made after that. I also have Gruen/Wads case # 5,054,XXX with an 11/17/1925 patent stamp. These, along with your engravings, show the jump happened near the end of 1925.
And we can pinpoint exactly when the “patents pending” stamp stopped. Hope this is interesting to others besides myself!
My two caveats:
1) I'm wrong many times a day --just ask my wife!
2) Always seeking to learn more
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