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AndCavanaugh's meticulous research uncovers a fascinating and controversial chapter in independent watchmaking history, examining the claims of Steven Phillips, the first American AHCI candidate. This deep dive into Phillips's Budapest Watch Company challenges the narrative of an innovative watchmaker, revealing a complex story of alleged misrepresentation and an ambitious, albeit perhaps impractical, 'Eternal Winding System.' AndCavanaugh's work provides crucial context for understanding the due diligence required in collecting independent horology.
The movement is of domestic Chinese design, similar to the SN2 calibers made by Nanjing (and others), but much smaller. Hangzhou moonlit as an assembly house for Daini Seikosha's 7009A movements during the 80s (like Sellita was for ETA), which explains the magic lever winding system. Some more background from chinesewatchwiki.net, which also explains the caliber's strange proportions: "Meeting the challenge of a changing market in the 1980s, the [Hangzhou] factory introduced an automatic Xihu watch. This was a man-sized watch, but the movement was based on the small Xihu calibre with an enlarged main plate and a very simple auto-winding module with a large rotor."
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Outsourcing movements and selling them as his own production. Still trying to figure out how the eternal movement works. Once again, thank you for your article. Can I suggest you to write us your point of view of the detent escapement on a dedicated discussion? Thanks
Basically, he replaced the rotor with a roast thermometer. The bi-metallic spring would need to be enormous to power a wristwatch from just ambient temperature changes. Important to note its not a heat powered watch, like a Seiko Thermic, those use the Seebeck effect to turn body heat into electricity, even those can't run just on ambient temperature changes.
The eternal movement is something that could be tried by Ressence, HYT or any other independent, using the Atmos' principle. There are plenty of liquids/solutions with low boiling point, the main challenge (and many more) is to seal the fluid circuit, but it's definitely feasible nowadays.
Maybe the AHCI figured it out too, but until now the consensus was mostly "innovator"
Some to know if his EWS really would power a watch.
I don’t know about his EWS and if it ever actually worked as claimed, but from the rip off skeletonized watch pretending to be something special at a ridiculous price back then, I can only deduce that this guy was a conman! IMO the AHCI should have distanced themselves very quickly and revealed to collectors this obvious fraud. He’s not the first and probably sadly won’t be the last. A good reminder to stay vigilant… Cheers, Tim
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