Featured Beveled glass disks 53 3/4 mm were for ??

The disks vary in thickness from about 3mm to about 7mm. All are 53 3/4 mm diameter. The glass is imperfect optically as many pieces give a slight warp to the image coming thru the glass at right angles, and some give no apparent distortion. The box has about 10 lbs of them, each few wrapped together then the packs stacked in tubes made of thin paper. I bought these because I had no clue what they were but hope to find out. Help please! The seller was selling junk at a Civil War event and was clueless, and had no idea where they came from.

I can’t seem to get a good url so this link is best I can do for now.

http://wp.me/aMlEl-td

 

They are pocket watch crystals and depending on the size I may be a very interested buyer if you are selling.

 

They look like ophthalmic lens blanks,if they are would date pre 1960 and nowhere near civil war.

 

Trust me, pocket watches are my specialty and those are NOS pocket watch crystals. My husband and I restore early American key wind pocket watches and I am very familiar with the packing and wrapping of the old crystals as I have been buying them for about 25 years.

 

These are for open faced pocket watch cases BTW.

 

How many hundreds of 54mm lenses have you cut and polished? Could have been used for multiple purposes.

 

They are not ophthalmic grade glass and there is no cutting or polishing involved for the watch repair person. They come in a wide variety of graduated sizes to fit the watch case bezels. I did not mean to offend you, I just recognize what they are.

 

I have a thousand or so in our shop. We often buy in lots and wind up with sizes we have no use for. We are only interested in 18 size watches and there is only a narrow range of sizes we use.

 

If you are interested in perhaps selling some of them Springfield please tell me what the size on the front of the wrapping is. These are measured in a long obsolete system called "lignes".

 

Thanks, the only number I’ve seen so far is 53 3/4 stamped on much of the wrapping paper, and that seems to be the exact diameter in mm of all of them. Should I be looking elsewhere?

 

Each little paper bundle has a number on the front. I am thinking I am seeing a 6?

 

The ones I am interested in would be approx an inch and three quarter straight across. Around that range.

 

I measured the ones we use and yours are larger. We use approx a 45mm. They are likely for 20 size watches. Anyway, now you know what you have!

 

Ok that’d be about 44.45mm, and it looks like all of ours are
53.75mm; quite a difference.

 

If you want to give yourself a headache checkout the confusion that abounds when it comes to measuring old watches and crystals as there are no less then four possible measuring systems used! Most of the crystals I buy are measured in lignes. Yours are somewhat more recent then the Civil War era as they are measured in millimeters. http://elginwatches.org/help/watch_sizes.html

 

I searched the web for 53 3/4 mm, and was amazed to find nothing at all in that size, I mean no Nothing of ANY kind. Very odd! My interpretation is that few watches with crystals that size survive and need replacement crystals, thus limited if any demand for these. I’ll look into another application for these, such as art.

 

Yes the only watches that I can think of would be perhaps the "Goliath" pocket watches or a few other rare sizes. I have never had one of those and do not know what size they take but there are not many of them around. They will have little value for watches.

 

Here is a comprehensive list from a dealer. Note that most are measured in Lignes but not all. Your crystals would be approx 23 1/2 lignes if using that measurement. You will see some in that range on that list. If you go down to category 231 you will find some measured in mm like yours. Mostly they are measured in lignes like I mentioned before but some are in mm. There are some in there as big as yours and bigger. That will give you an idea what a parts dealer would sell them for. You might send him an email and see if he would be interested in buying them if you don't find any other uses. http://www.dashto.org/newlists/selectedglasspocketwatchcrystals.htm