Hey Todd!
Great to see you here at the FPB!
Ha ha! I think you may be right; a "mid-night" run when the boss went home to the misses for dinner!
I think the 585 for sure is an indication of non U.S. manufacture. In the watch business, in the vintage watch business, this is one of the most excellent tell tale signs of a watch case manufactured for the European market. Watch cases made for the European market will say 585, 750, and for Platinum 950. Also 333 for 9k (mostly U.K. markets including Australia/New Zealand.) So the trick is to "know" when a Swiss watch is manufactured for the U.S. market, or not. 14k or 18k means USA market, imported movement/cased and timed in the USA while those marked with the purity numbers were then manufactured for overseas markets.
Why is this the case (no pun intended!) Import duties on unfinished goods were drastically different, for a watch movement without a case was taxed at a lower rate then a finished watch with a case, to protect the U.S. market at the time.
Of course this did not prevent people from buying a watch on their oversea's travels and bringing it into the U.S. as a tourist souvenir/gift. So, it is more difficult in the watch world to find here in the U.S. European marked cases just by the numbers, for there are more watches here with American gold cases then European gold cases.
What even makes these European gold/platinum cases more rare is that the recovery of Europe after WWII did not lend itself to people there able to buy a gold watch; therefore, most of these European watches were purchased by tourists visiting.
How's that for adding a bit of details to the markings, in a different field?
Yes, I have found some great goodies in my travels, and I have more coming soon!
Greg Minuskin
greg@gregminuskin.com
www.gregminuskin.com
Edited by Greg Minuskin, 07 May 2013 - 04:30 AM.