Скачать или смотреть A. Schild 13, Cal.137 c.1917 Officer Watch with original band, GP Brietling case

A. Schild Calibre 137
This is an A. Schild 13''' (thirteen ligne) Calibre 137 Reference 1333 movement from a wristwatch officially issued by the War Department in circa 1917. The watch has a screw back and bezel nickel case made by Dennison with the pheon or broad arrow mark of government military property, and an Army stores number. Watches with pheons were issued to "other ranks". Officers were expected to wear a wristwatch, which they purchased from their kit allowance, along with their uniform, sword, revolver, etc. These effects became the officers possessions and were not marked with the pheon of government property.

ASchild movement
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The movement was identified as an A. Schild movement by the factory mark of AS in oval on the bottom plate under the dial. The exact calibre and reference was determined from the 1936 edition of "La Classification Horlogère Suisse".

The decoration on the plates is called "perlage", which is form of engine turning produced by pressing the end of a rotating wooden peg charged with abrasive powder repeatedly onto the surface to form a pattern of overlapping circles. (Engine turning done with a machine which cuts a fine pattern into a moving surface with a stationary cutting tool using a machine called a rose engine lathe is called "Guilloché." This is often seen on dials and cases but not on movements.)

The Schild family, along with the Girards, set up the first factories making ébauches (bare watch movements) in Grenchen, and this became the principal industry in the area.

Adolph Schild was the younger brother of Urs Schild who founded Eterna in 1856. Adolf Schild set up A. Schild & Cie with Stefan Zimmermann in Grenchen in 1896. The intention was to make high quality ebauches with all parts being interchangeable, and the company did much research into tooling to achieve this. In 1914 the company won a gold medal at the Swiss National Exhibition in Berne for the interchangeability of its parts.

ETA logo
ETA logo: Manufacture Horlogère Suisse
A. Schild supplied ébauches to many watch "manufacturers", including Gruen and Girard Perregaux, and made the movements for John Harwood's revolutionary self winding wristwatch.

In 1925 ébauches SA was formed as an association of 26 ébauche makers, including A. Schild, Fontainemelon, ETA (at the time the movement division of Eterna), and a number of other Swiss ébauche makers. Each member of the association had a logo based on their initials within a common shield. The separate companies were acquired by ETA over the years and today the whole company is called simply "ETA S.A. Manufacture Horlogère Suisse". The logo includes the statement "depuis 1793", a reference to the oldest company in the group, Fontainemelon.