Nov 2017 - Since it's been a few months since the last major update, the addition of the Gruen Map of Movements, part of the larger Gruen Movement Catalog project. This Cataloging project is a significant on, as each movement much be located, photographed, had the data collected from it, and much more research about when it was made, etc. I'm also working on some sophisticated identification tools.
What this all means is that the site may feel a little scattered. Where there is plenty to discover here, no everyone wants to spend the time 'discovering' and wants to get on with getting their questions answered. I totally understand if there is some frustration along the way. I appreciate hearing from anyone with feedback. It helps me make a better site for you. I will work to get a couple of smaller tutorials or posts of historical material between now and the opening of the larger projects areas.
Recommendation for a watchmaker for your broken or poorly running Gruen :-) Added to the "links" page was my favorite watchmaker Time Restoration. I have no trouble nor hesitation in recommending you give him a try.
New movement serial number logging form! Want to help out with the current caliber 440 + Wadsworth case effort? Then fill out the form on the serial number page and your data will get merged into the graph on that page.
Announcement of HUGE watch/clock material auction!
Addition of a handy Inflation Calculator makes it easy to understand the dollar figures found in old ads and price lists.
RARE treat! The family of Gruen designer Richard G. Gersch has been SO amazingly generous in their submission of photographs of materials saved by Richard after he left Gruen in 1954. The new homepage graphics come from these materials. Watch for more!
NEW tool - Gruen Case Serial Number Decoder tool launched on homepage and on Serial Number page. Use with caution, but use! Provide feedback on the about page if you want to help! Please be hyper-careful when submitting data.
Movement Information Finder tool now operational! Check it out in the new Movement Catalog.
Ligne conversion tool! Want to know how many Lignes your movement is? Just use the new handy tool on the homepage and in new Movement Catalog
The Caliber 440 Curvex movements' serial numbers have been [maybe] [partially] decoded!! Exciting news that we can finally determine the date a cal 440 movement was manufactured.
More research and digging into the high res photos. Matching them against the book "Worthy Company". Read about it here.
Added an online index for all of the movements that can be found in the Gruen Repairer's Reference.
Gruen Parts Requests . If you're having a hard time finding a part, maybe we can help.
Movement Catalog additions. It's growing... slowly. Looking at making a WALL CHART of Gruen movements. Fun! Since I've got these high-resolution photos, why not blow them up and put something useful on them?? It's likely I can have a choice of several backgrounds.
Fred Gruen's watchmaking school notes... all 97 pages worth are posted and readable online.
Added caliber 510 mainspring size on the mainspring reference page and updated the reference PDF to version 5. The 510 mainspring was only sold as a barrel and mainspring sub-assembly. Gruen never published the size of the spring nor could you buy it separately from the barrel. Weird. Spoiler... the 510 uses a Dennison 2.5 x 10 x 14 inches.
Site cleanup.... a number of old webpages that should have been removed remained in the sitemap are now password protected to stop the search engines from crawling them. No great conspiracy here to see.
Advertising... yes, ads have been added here and there on the site recently.
I know some people are furious when they see ads. If you're one of those people and prefer to help keep this site running, then I've added a convenient Donate button on the About page. My goal has always been to provide people with as MUCH Gruen information that I can either buy, beg, or research, for as long as I can.
It's already been a BUSY NEW YEAR!
NEW tools for dating your Gruen watch!
Serial numbers for cases made by Gruen, Keystone, Star have just been released. You'll find them on the Serial Numbers page.
More Gruen Annual reports. A generous reader has located and provided to me the "missing years" and in the process almost doubled the number of pages to 342 pages!
And, a new "series"....
In this series of PDF posts contains pages from Fred's hand-written diary chronicling the train trip he took with George Gruen in Aug of 1934 (I think). The trip was from Chicago to Yellowstone and was over a week. There are 200 small hand-written pages. The handwriting is difficult to read, so I'm having this document transcribed.
We will all learn together what kind of writer Fred Gruen was as the pages are being transcribed and released a few at a time.
Keep checking back as more pages are added every day or two!
More free stuff! An early version of the Gruen Horological Text
I'm making available another newly discovered Gruen document. For the price of $0.00 you can download or read online the Gruen Watchmaking Institute's course materials. You'll find the 88 page document on the page titled FREE Watchmaking Course. Enjoy and happy watchmaking!
