# Smiths Watch



## jas57 (Feb 4, 2012)

Greetings from the U.S.

I recently bought a Smiths watch off of eBay U.K. because, as a guy named Smith, I figured I needed one.

Anyway, I didn't want to spend too much, but I did at least want it to have Great Britain printed on the dial.

The movement is marked Cal 512. Is that a British designed and built unit?

If it isn't, whose movement is it?

Thanks for your help, Jim.


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## Chascomm (Sep 9, 2005)

jas57 said:


> Greetings from the U.S.
> 
> I recently bought a Smiths watch off of eBay U.K. because, as a guy named Smith, I figured I needed one.
> 
> ...


'512' is not a number that I know. Could it be 612?

Either way, if it's marked 'Great Britain' then you can be sure that it is a 100% British-designed, British-made watch from the Anglo-Celtic Watch Co, Ystradgynlais, Wales (a Smiths/Ingersoll joint venture).

Other post-war Smiths watches are marked 'England'. Those are the high-grade watches made by Smiths' own factory.

Smiths watches with no country-of-origin but the dial marked 'Jewelled' use a Hamazawa movement imported from Japan. Other later watches use (usually cheap) Swiss movements, and some of the cheapies were imported complete from Switzerland (thus marked 'Swiss Made').

But yours is a piece of real British heritage.


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## john87300 (Oct 12, 2011)

Hi Jim,

I'm still searching for a watch from a long defunct French brand of my surname!

Any photos of the Smiths?

For a liitle history, do a search on the Anglo-Celtic as mentioned by Chascomm, there's a good archive history site concerning the Ystradgynlais plant


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## streety (Jan 17, 2009)

john87300 said:


> Hi Jim,
> 
> I'm still searching for a watch from a long defunct French brand of my surname!
> 
> ...


Im guessing your surname is not "87300" then :wink1: . Seriously though I do have a few obscure French makes in my collection.


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## john87300 (Oct 12, 2011)

streety said:


> john87300 said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Jim,
> ...


Good guess :yes: , there's an extremely obscure brand called "Henry", I came across one a while ago, from the blurry photo it looked like it was from the late 50's/early 60's and the face was marked "17 jewel Incabloc", as the seller insisted it was quartz and needed a new battery, so I let it lie.


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## streety (Jan 17, 2009)

Quartz dont interest me either. A French watch I do have is a Pirenne c.1940s, yet there is little on no information on the net about this brand.

Sorry no Henrys, would have liked to have helped you out


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## john87300 (Oct 12, 2011)

streety said:


> Quartz dont interest me either. A French watch I do have is a Pirenne c.1940s, yet there is little on no information on the net about this brand.
> 
> Sorry no Henrys, would have liked to have helped you out


I looked at the post you made of your Pirenne, I don't know it sadly, but I recently saw something really similar, not a Pirenne though, an unbranded one, but the face was virtually identical. I'll add Pirenne to my ever growing list of marques to look out for when researching


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## jas57 (Feb 4, 2012)

I've posted a photo below which shows a Smiths movement which looks like the 512 in my watch.

My 512 though is a pin lever movement with perhaps one or two jewels. The 512 looks to be chrome plated also.

The watch would lose considerable time, so I decided to take it apart and give it a good cleaning.

Unfortunately, someone had been in there before me and stripped out one of the plate screws and had broken one the locating feet off of the plastic dial.

The worst part though, is that they had bent the hairspring in an odd way. With difficulty, I was able to get it to keep fairly good time in the face up position. It would stop though when worn.

This is where I made the big mistake of trying to further straighten out the hairspring. Disaster ensued, and I'm afraid that I must order a new complete unit from one of your suppliers which claims to stock a balance for the 512/542.

Anyway, comments on the photo would be appreciated.

Thanks, Jim.


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