Pocket watches look particularly interesting when they have a signature, inscription, emblem or dedication, and historically craftsmen have spared no effort in creating beautiful fonts with monograms and flourishes. not the serial number on the external case.Antique pocket watches often delight us with their beautiful engraved lids and mysterious, intricate old inscriptions. Your movement serial number may not be in exactly the same location as the one in the photo, but you are looking for the serial number that is on the watch mechanism itself.

You usually have to take the back off the watch case to see the movement serial number which may appear anywhere on the watch movement. Cases and watches were often made by different companies and each usually has its own serial number. not the serial number from the watch case. the working part with the wheels and gears. You must use the serial number from the MOVEMENT of the watch. Since your serial number falls between those two numbers, you know that your watch was made in 1917 or 1918. Looking at the table of Waltham serial numbers (see example below), you can see that number 20,900,000 was made in 1917 and 21,800,000 was made in 1918 (marked in red in the table below).

Note that we're using the serial number from the watch movement, not from the watch case. Let's say you have a Waltham watch with serial number 21,607,210 as shown in the photo below. So to determine when your watch was manufactured, you will need to find where your serial number fits within the range of numbers. that would make some really long pages! Our serial number tables list RANGES of serial numbers. Many watch companies made hundreds of thousands of watches, and some companies made millions of watches! It would be impractical to list the individual serial numbers of EVERY watch made. Can't find YOUR exact serial number in our lookup tables? Most vintage Swiss pocket watches did NOT have serial numbers and can't be dated by this method. Some American watch brands did not use a consistent series of serial numbers, but most of the big manufacturers did. Not all vintage watches can be dated using the serial number. You should consult the serial number table for the specific brand of watch movement you are trying to date by selecting a company from the menu on the left. The example below uses information from the American Waltham Watch Company, but that is just an example. This page contains INSTRUCTIONS for using the serial number look-up tables that are found on many of our watch company history pages. Determine the Age of your Vintage Pocket Watch How to Use our Vintage Watch Serial Number & Date Lookup Tables Instructions for using our serial number look-up tables

Pocket watch case serial numbers