When I came across this Welsbro vintage watch I was eager to find out about the history behind the company that manufactured or assembled this watch. Through my research I discovered that Welsbro was a trademark of Weissman Watch Co., New York, importers of fine Swiss Watches. Welsbro watches actually began in the pocket watch era. The name was initially 'Weisbro', for the Weissman Brothers (Weis + Bro = Weisbro). But when the name was capitalized, as is typical for a name on a watch, Weisbro became “WEISBRO” which looked like “Welsbro”. Well….. guess what…the company took that name and ran with it. Welsbro watches were typically good quality Swiss watches with jeweled movements from one of a few Swiss movement manufacturers. The cases were also typical for that era, being either gold plated or chrome plated. Late 1930s to 1940s Welsbro watches shared the same cases used by other quality Swiss watch manufacturers. In the world of vintage timepieces, Welsbro watches were like Bulova watches, in that they were both New York City based companies that imported quality Swiss Watches. Samuel Weissman, Sylvia Shapiro and Florence Weissman, were doing business as Weissman Watch Co., Welsbro Watch Co. and Weisco Watch Co., 20 W. 47th St., in 1943. This particular watch has a Swiss movement stamped “Hilton Watch Co. So, I think it’s even more rare since it appears to be a mix of two companies. Hilton was a company based in New York City and distributed watches usually made with 17 jewel Swiss movements and cases from a variety of sources. It was a marketing company rather than a manufacturer. What is fascinating and rare about the movement is that it is stamped “AS 1187/94” which is the same movement that Rolex purchased from 'A Schild' in Grenchen for use in its Tudor range of watches in the 1950’s and 1960’s. (Google ...TUDOR AS 1187/94 MOVEMENT). There is a misconception that because of the Rolex prestige, it is automatically assumed by most buyers that Rolex manufactured its own movements in-house, but in fact, during its golden age this was never so. The majority of Rolex mechanisms were purchased from the 'Aegler' company, not least because Rolex had a strong financial interest in Aegler. Other movements were also sourced from Fabrique d’Horologerie de Fontainmelon ( F.H.F) and A Schild (AS), which is the exact same movement in this Welsbro/Hilton watch. Then as now, the standard of components needed to satisfy Rolex quality control was nothing short of remarkable, and whichever one of these makers were responsible for a particular Rolex movement from the 1950s and ‘60s, its build and finish standard will always be second to none. The case of this particular watch is stamped W.M.R Watch Case Co. which was an entity registered at NEW YORK county at the address of 11 W. 42Nd St. New York, NY10036. The company was incorporated on June 19, 1959. and it seems to have supplied cases for some other brands such as "Vantage" (Hamilton) and "Halgreen”. This is a very interesting and beautiful watch indeed! A bit of background on "assembled" watches: Literally thousands of watch companies have existed. Some actually "manufactured" watches while many other companies "pieced together" components that were manufactured by other companies. They would purchase the movement, dial, case, hands, etc. from different suppliers and assemble them in their own factories. Watches were sold under whatever name they had chosen to put on the dial. These are collectively referred to as "generic" Swiss watches, or "assembled" watches. The movements inside these watches are referred to as "ebauches" (pronounced ay-boshe). Ebauche, S.A. at one time was an affiliation of 17 firms manufacturing raw Swiss watch movements. It doesn't mean they are "bad" or of poor quality either as some ebauche movements were used by early Rolex and Breitling watches. When it comes to researching about these companies, the longer a company was in existence, the better the chance that history is available, and probably the watch is more collectible (and may have a higher value). Here are some examples of companies with ‘ebauche’ movements:
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Old Time WatchesI enjoy collecting mechanical (manual wind and automatic) and early electric and quartz timepieces. I take great pleasure in researching and writing about the companies and people that created these beautiful watches. PF
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September 2018
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