ates, bridges, and ring gear are
nickel-plated and highly buffed, making a very showy movement, the only
instances of such a finish on watches in the author's experience. In
figure 12 is shown a 24-hour dial to fit the movement. Special dial
gearing would be required for the hour hand to accompany this dial.

[Illustration: Figure 16.--DIAL FOR 1/10-SECOND MODEL Auburndale timer.
(In author's collection.)]

The first of these watches were placed on the market in 1877, priced at
$10.00 to the trade. Soon complaints came in that they were defective in
operation and many were returned. We have seen from the specimens
examined that there seems to have been no established model produced in
quantity. The dial and the number of jewels varied, as well as the
escapement, suggesting that the owners were groping for a salable variant
of the design for which they had tooled the factory. Probably the pointed
pallet escapement was used first, it being the less expensive of the two.
In addition to the saving effected by not requiring banking pins, the
escape wheel was much cheaper to cut, as the teeth were very short and
strong (see fig. 11). Since the banking took place between the pallets
and the escape wheel, there was no adjustment for the amount of slide;
and since the watches were not made to close tolerances, the slide was
necessarily excessive and consequently power consuming. The conventional
club-tooth escapement was probably substituted as less troublesome,
although the banking pins were fixed and could only be adjusted by
bending them. The pallets remained solid steel, without adjustable stone
inserts.

At this stage of affairs approximately $140,000 had been invested in the
venture, the market was already glutted with conventional watches which
enjoyed the confidence of retailers, and the Auburndale Rotary had won a
bad reputation. The success of any watch depends largely on the
confidence the retail dealers have in it. They are looking for a product
easy to sell at an attractive profit as well as one that will stay sold
and create a satisfied customer. Fowle was of course very much
disappointed; before going into the venture he had been advised that he
could expect to produce 200 watches per day on an expenditure of
$16,000.[33] The watches reached the market at a time, the fall of
1877, almost coincidental with application by D. Azro A. Buck for patents
on what was to become the Waterbury rotary. These patents represe