All about Gruen

[Mr. Bieser]

Caliber 615. Fabrique Aureole/Record Dreadnought. 16 Jewels. 4 Adjust. 7.75 Ligne.

1926 Supplement B.

(Thanks for the the ID Barney!)

[Fred]

Cool! Here's mine that we've seen before--but I think useful to prove the curious SN under dial. Appears the 4 digits line up with 10k place + last 3 of SN on bridges side.

Btw, my SN on the bridges appears to be 120,223, with the "0" overstamped with what may be a "7" .

[Mr. Bieser]

Thanks! Always helpful to compare specimens, definitely things to be learned by further observation. Like yours with the serial number. The overstruck 7? is interesting!

[Fred]

I’ll stir the pot again on this caliber, to suggest that, although Fabrique Aureole made this caliber, it was supplied to Gruen by & numbered for Record Dreadnought.

We can agree to be certain that the sn does not fit Gruen circa 1920.

Known Record calibers are the only standard wristlet calibers I recall with a supplier sn stamped on bridges at this time (612, 613, 616—surrounding 615). The sn here fits Record in late teens; still TBD if it fits Aureole.

[Mr. Bieser]

I’ll stir the pot again on this caliber, to suggest that, although Fabrique Aureole made this caliber, it was supplied to Gruen by & numbered for Record Dreadnought.

We can agree to be certain that the sn does not fit Gruen circa 1920.

Known Record calibers are the only standard wristlet calibers I recall with a supplier sn stamped on bridges at this time (612, 613, 616—surrounding 615). The sn here fits Record in late teens; still TBD if it fits Aureole.

Noted. The devil is in the details. Thanks

[Dietrich]

I meanwhile had access to a better copy of the depose pictures. Here now is our Aureole movement aka Gruen 615:

[Mr. Bieser]

Thanks for showing this. Seeing it on paper is believing and they are very similar but I'm noting several small differences in layout w image & w example of Gruen 615, including the click. Is this the base calibre? Perhaps the diff is bc of OF & Hunter?

[Dietrich]

I hear you. WIth the clearer picture the differences are more obvious and I now also doubt a little that Aureole is the true source for caliber 615. Need to dig deeper now in my newly acquired pictures. Amazing how much more details you can see in these colour scans vs. the old ones.

[Dietrich]

I double checked the deposes and it looks like there is no 1:1 match for the Gruen caliber 615. But still the picture from the 1921 Aureole advertisement is an almost perfect match, definitely better than the depose picture I posted before. Unsure if this an evolutionary step or if these are two different movements from Aureole. But again the advertisement picture is the very best available match.

Cal++615+Aureole.jpg (10.2 KiB) Viewed 23 times

[Mr. Bieser]

Now I can recall, that's it, the ad, with a match, no doubt about it. Funny how the depose can confuse. Can you tell me what you know about Phillip Wolf?