Illinois Trench Watch - Sterling Silver Cushion - Enamel Dial with Red Minutes - Circa 1913

An enamel dial begins as powdered glass. Dialmakers laid the powder over a copper blank, set it in a kiln, and held it in the fire until the glass melted, flowed, and fused to the metal, then fired it again to set the printing. What came out of the kiln was not paint on a plate. It was glass, and glass does not fade.

The dial on this watch was fired for the Grade 33, a movement the Illinois Watch Company of Springfield finished in a run of seven hundred in 1913. It carries eleven jewels, winds by hand, and wears damascened stripes across its plates, with the crown at three and the seconds at six. Around it is a cushion case of sterling silver with wire lugs, small and low on the wrist.

The dial is white with black Arabic numerals, the minutes counted in red at every five, and the seconds turning in their own sunken ring above the six. Under a light it reads glassy and wet. The hour and minute hands are blued steel gone nearly black against the white, and the small seconds hand is gilt.

Everything else on the watch shows its hundred years. Fine scratches cross the polished sterling, the plating on the crown has worn through to the brass, and the tan leather cuff it rides on, a wide pad with the strap running beneath it held by bright screw studs, has cracked along its folds. The white of the dial is still the white the kiln gave it. The watch runs, and its service history is unknown.

Terms: Please review all photos carefully as they are a part of the listing. This is a vintage timepiece. Accuracy, power reserve, and water resistance are not guaranteed. Vintage watches may require periodic service. Performance can vary with wear, temperature, and position.

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