What makes the Springfield 568 unique: Today, we’re happy to feature this luxurious watch that was initially produced by the Illinois Watch Company in 1925 — the Springfield 568. This watch boasts a gorgeous white dial with bold black numerals and a matching subdial. The front of the piece also has distinct black diamond kite watch hands with red tips, encased within a domed crystal.
This dial is an especially remarkable part of our collection because our watchmaker Kent Parks applied a special Lume by hand, enabling some small details to glow in the dark. Kent says; “The dial has 4 precisely hand-applied coatings of B-17F NoctiLumina to the indexes in the chapter ring behind each number on the dial. It is finished with 2 light coats of Binder 3 to give the lume a "pearl" finish.
“The work is done by hand, and luming 6 coats on such tiny areas demanded the best of my 20 years of experience in this field. We took great pains to select an appropriate dial to lume and made sure we were merely enhancing what was already there. All printing is as seen on the original dial. In fact, with a real close view, the original is enhanced in bright daylight by the tiny white pearls around the chapter ring and the red hands. And at night you can read your watch in a dark room, with less than a minute’s exposure to the light”
We encased the pocket watch in our sleek DLC Black Titanium case and topped it with a nickel-plated crown. Our DLC Black Titanium case features an open back, enabling you to see the pocket watch’s 405-grade open-face movement with a Going barrel and 17 jewels, and gold-plated gears.
This 17-jewel 12s Illinois movement also boasts a center bridge plate with a stunning engraving that reads “The Governor,” referring to the pocket watch’s variation. The screws were heat-treated to match the copper-colored jewel casings. Finally, we equipped the watch with our artisan-designed Cordovan Black leather watch strap, making the watch look even more smart and stylish.
The Illinois Watch Company originally manufactured the pocket watch in Springfield, Illinois, in 1925 — the same year that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the groundbreaking first feature-length adaptation of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The film set MGM on the stage as a major film studio, but the movie actually lost the company money ($698,000) in its initial theatrical release due to its massive budget.
The average film that MGM produced in 1925 cost $158,000 (close to $2,700,000 today) while Ben Hur cost the studio a whopping $3,900,000 (a little over $66,000,000 today), making it the most expensive film of the silent era. MGM re-released the film with a musical score in 1931, and with the re-release earnings, the film earned the studio $81,000.
