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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Serial-number guide

Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) Serial Numbers

Estimated

What a Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) serial number can establish, what it cannot, and how to record a date estimate another researcher could check.

Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) movement markings

Gustav Becker clock in UM Poznan (2)
Gustav Becker clock in UM Poznan (2) — MOs810, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Gustav Becker clock in UM Poznan (1)
Gustav Becker clock in UM Poznan (1) — MOs810, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
64 Gorokhovaya Street. Rasputin's apartment Gustav Becker clocks 05
64 Gorokhovaya Street. Rasputin's apartment Gustav Becker clocks 05 — Vaija, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

Movement markings — maker name, grade, serial number and jewelling — are the evidence base for any serial-number attribution.

Method

Reading the number, step by step

  1. 1. Find the movement number

    The serial belongs to the movement; the wooden case was frequently supplied or selected separately in the furniture and clock-casing trade of the period, so a case style is only a loose stylistic dating indicator, not a match to the movement's serial-derived date.

  2. 2. Understand what it encodes

    A serial number stamped on the movement plate can suggest an approximate production year via these community-compiled tables; the trademark or eagle/shield logo style stamped alongside the serial changed over the company's history and is itself sometimes used by researchers as a secondary, cross-checking dating clue.

  3. 3. Judge how precise the date can be

    Estimated: published Gustav Becker tables are community reconstructions from surviving examples and partial trade records, not a complete verified factory ledger, and researchers openly note ranges of uncertainty, particularly for the earlier decades of production.

  4. 4. Check the records behind the tables

    Gustav Becker was a very large nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German clock manufacturer; original factory ledgers have not survived in a form accessible to the public in the way some Swiss watch archives have, but the firm stamped sequential serial numbers on movements for most of its production, and NAWCC-affiliated and specialist German-clock researchers have compiled community serial-to-year tables from surviving examples, trade literature and trademark-registration changes over time.

Quick facts

Manufacturer
Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia)
Dating confidence
Estimate only — see notes
Editorial status
Estimated

Sources & references

  1. NAWCC published research and Bulletin articles on Gustav Becker production and serial dating
  2. Community-maintained German clock-serial reference compilations (secondary, approximate)

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.

Limits

What the number does not prove

Questions

Frequently asked

Where is the serial number on a Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) watch?
The serial belongs to the movement; the wooden case was frequently supplied or selected separately in the furniture and clock-casing trade of the period, so a case style is only a loose stylistic dating indicator, not a match to the movement's serial-derived date.
What do Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) serial numbers mean?
A serial number stamped on the movement plate can suggest an approximate production year via these community-compiled tables; the trademark or eagle/shield logo style stamped alongside the serial changed over the company's history and is itself sometimes used by researchers as a secondary, cross-checking dating clue.
How accurate is dating a Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) watch by serial number?
Estimated: published Gustav Becker tables are community reconstructions from surviving examples and partial trade records, not a complete verified factory ledger, and researchers openly note ranges of uncertainty, particularly for the earlier decades of production.
Where are Gustav Becker (Freiburg in Schlesien / Silesia) production records held?
Gustav Becker was a very large nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German clock manufacturer; original factory ledgers have not survived in a form accessible to the public in the way some Swiss watch archives have, but the firm stamped sequential serial numbers on movements for most of its production, and NAWCC-affiliated and specialist German-clock researchers have compiled community serial-to-year tables from surviving examples, trade literature and trademark-registration changes over time.

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