The faceplate on my watch says “25 jewels.” I’ve tried to look up a definition, but just get a bunch of sites that sell jeweled watches (like w/ diamonds and rubies). It’s been bugging me for a while, what does “25 jewels” mean?
Thank you in advance.
Jewels are used as bearings for moving parts. When mechanical watches were common, the number of jewels was a rough indication of the quality of the watch.
More jewels meant less friction and longer life.
Watch jewels are gemstone bearings used to reduce friction in the small clockwork workings. “25 jewels” simply means that there are 25 jewel bearings in the watchworks. This watch would have 23 jewels, then.
Ahh, thanks. So, is 25 a good number to have?
Again, thanks in advance.
25 jewels is good. 23 jewels is the most most pocket watches usually have according to this site - http://elginwatches.org/help/watch_jewels.html. High quality wrist watch movements - the Valjoux 7750 is a good example - sometimes have 25 jewels and I’m sure some have more.
Yes, a good quality mechanical watch now will have more than 23 jewels. According to a watchmaker friend, a mechanical watch really only needs 9 jewels-the others are pivots for gear wheels that really don’t need them.
It might be of interest to note that watch companies tried to promote the notion that more jewels=better watch. In the twilight of the American watch industry (late 1950’s), one company pushed this to absurd lengths-the Waltham watch company sold several watch models with 100 jewels! (The extra jewels were embedded in the watch frame-they had no function whatever).
Finally, seberal watch mfgs. made watches with diamond jewels (regular watch jewels are synthetic sapphire). Diamond has nt advantage over sapphire, but t sounds classier.
