This veteran 9k gold cased gents watch came in for a bit of tlc recently. The name Bravingtons Renown as far as I can establish was taken from Bravingtons the London jewellers who had a shop in Pentonville Road, and Renown was the name they gave to their wristwatches. Renown was actually registered by Bravingtons as a trademark in 1955 but they were using the name long before then.

A picture of Bravingtons store circa 1955, and a London Transport trolley bus number 513!

The watch is housed in a 9k Dennison lozenge shaped case with a plain back to it.

The case hinges upwards to remove the movement, a nice little touch!

One side of the hinge on the case was broken so this needed attention.

Some brass wire of the correct dimension was used to make a new hinge pin.

The case was hand polished and the new pin fitted.

Work could now start on the movement. The dial and hands were a little grubby but considering the age of the watch not bad at all.

With those removed the movement can be seen, it’s a FHF calibre 29, quite a good movement for the day. These were used by many manufacturers of the day….

….Rolex included!

The dial side was soon stripped….

….and I could then start removing the motion work. Calibres of this age are always seem to have beautifully engraved balance cocks and ratchet wheels and the shape of the bridges are gorgeous.

The balance and pallet fork were removed….

….then the bridges came off….

….and it was soon ready for cleaning.

After the components had been inspected a couple of issues were found, the tang on the exterior hooking of the mainspring was broken, and strangely I also found a tang stuck to the barrel wall from the previous blued mainspring, probably the original one.

Also, the escape wheel had some corrosion on one of the feet. These particular escape wheels are known as the Swiss lever club foot type and the foot part is a critical part of the wheel. This transfers the mainsprings power through the pallet stone to the balance wheel by sliding and pushing the stone which in turn transfers the motion through the ancre or pallet fork to the balance via the impulse jewel. With the state of the corroded foot I don’t think it would have run very well, if at all.

A new escape wheel was sourced.

This meant the movement could be rebuilt starting with the new mainspring.

The wheel train was then refitted….

….the bridges were next….

….then the escapement was refitted and adjusted.

After the dial side was rebuilt the dial was gently cleaned and refitted….

….as were the hands.

The movement was then replaced in the case, I’ve never seen so many service marks in a watch before! This was obviously looked after during its long life. The hallmarks in the case shown a Birmingham assay mark, 375 for 9k gold and the letter M for 1936-37.

And here she is finished, a charming little 79 year old!