I could be wrong, but given the weight of 18k gold, I would expect that 14k, or perhaps even lower content gold, would have typically been employed for hands. In other words, I would think that 18k gold hands would add stress to the center pinion.
If I am correct, it would help to explain why the colors of hands are not always consistent with the indices.
Does anyone know if Patek, Vacheron, or Audemars ever used 14Kt gold in any of their watch components, like dial markers or hands, or have these parts (unlike some vintage Omega and Rolex components) always been made of 18Kt gold? Cheers,
I don’t remember I’ve heard about it. But I would suggest the gold content of index and hands always goes with the case gold content, because of the colour matching. Different colours on vintage might caused by partial polishing.
V&C has made watches in 14K for US retail using US made cases.
That could be true. But what about in AP's and PP's and even VC's steel case offerings?
I guess PP, AP just did the same. They all used the same furniture suppliers, that’s known.
The steel would use the dial spec of gold pieces. As well the US made used the European standards. I’m talking about 1940-1960’s. Maybe the spec changed later on.
But if index and hand gold content matches cases, and a case is steel, which should match gold cases, but which could be 14Kt or 18Kt, then we're back where we started. To be more specific, I'm mostly wondering about neo-vintage and contemporary PP and AP steel sports watches. But there are some other interesting examples, like the VC Triple Calendar 1942...
