1948 Eric

 I think my favorite decade for watches is the 1940s.  That may be because that was the WWII era and I find the military models the most interesting.  However, I like the timeframe in American history as well.  The nation had come together to defeat fascism and a new era of prosperity was beginning after the Great Depression.  It was also when my parents with children and I like to imagine the sort of world they grew up in... not unlike the movie, "A Christmas Story"... aka "you'll shoot your eye out".

Watches in the 1940s tend to be the smallest of all the decades.  Some men's models are so small that they'd even be considered small for a woman by today's standards.  However, my view is if they were bog enough for the generation of men who stormed the beaches of Anzio, Normandy and Iwo Jima, who am I to judge?

One of the 1940 models that isn't too small is the 1948 Eric.  It was produced through 1951 so it's not a terribly hard model to find.

The Eric is very easy to misidentify or confuse with the Dewitt, which was offered at the same time.  Both models have similar lug designs, although the Eric's are more square-shaped.  Both models have all-numeral dials but the Eric was also offered with a two-tone gold numeral and dot dial as well.  Both models featured the 17 jewel 8/0 sized 747 movement.

Interestingly, the Eric and Dewitt were offered on a bracelet or a leather strap.  There were earlier models that offered bracelets but that was few and far between.  The propensity to offer bracelets was more common starting in the late 1940s and it quickly became the norm.

The Eric differed from the Dewitt in one key way, the Eric was offered in a 14K gold filled case while the Dewitt featured 10K gold filled.  So if you find the two models difficult to identify, the case material is a definitive clue.

I started to disassemble my project watch before I considered taking photos for the blog.  The only other post I did on the Eric was over 14 years ago!  So my initial photo is missing the hour and minute hands but, not to worry, they are present and accounted for.

The back of the case is in decent shape.  Most of the Erics I see show a bit of wear to the tops of the lugs and a little to the case back.  This case appears to be better than average but would still benefit from a cleaning.

The dial has been refinished at some point.  I think the pattern used is correct but the numbers scratched into the back and the glue over the rivets for the numerals are proof-positive that the dial has been redone.

Somehow I forgot to take the usual "disassembled" photo revealing all the parts after they've been cleaned and dried.  I like the 747 movement, its arguably the easiest of the American made movements to work on and if you include the 730 and 731 movements with shock jewels, the movement design was produced through the end of production in Lancaster in the late 1960s.

In the photo below the movement is reassembled and ticking away with a nice motion.  This 747 has a very low serial number and dates the watch to the first year of production.

The time tells me the performance is pretty good but the beat error is out of spec at 4.6ms.  The beat error is a measure of how well centered the balance is relative to the pallet fork.  If it's not centered, the balance will swing a little further to one side than the other.  The closer to zero the better, but my personal specs are3.0ms or less.  That's because it's a very tricky adjustment to make and if you're not careful (or lucky) you can ruin the hairspring by attempting toe adjust the beat error.  Unfortunately for me, I feel obliged to improve it.

I got lucky on my first attempt and was able to get the beat error down to a more than acceptable 0.5ms.  I'll let it run a little while before I tweak the beat rate up a little with the regulator.

I polished the plastic crystal.  It's a "cylinder" design and it's technically not the correct style but it's design has helped reduce the wear on the lugs.  Even with that though, you can still see a little wear to the lugs where they join the bezel.  It doesn't look bad though, and with a nice new strap, this watch looks as good as it runs.