Horological Meandering

SteveG
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regarding that Guillaume Balance

Several pages ago I posted about my Tiffany pocketwatch:

home.watchprosite.com

to which ei8htohms was kind enough to respond in part:

"The balance is not Guillaume in my opinion, but rather a traditional split bi-metallic balance.  At least, it does not have the
usual tell-tale sign of Guillaume balances: the rim on the short side is usually extended. "

which sent me amateur researching the question of visually distinguishing between a Guillaume and an ordinary bimetallic
 split balance.  I found a few threads at the NAWCC website bemoaning the lack of absolute clarity on this subject.  I found a
 few pictures at Google image search, alas, most of them were mine.

In an effort to add to the discussion, here are pictures of a few ordinary bimetallic split balances:



This seems pretty straightforward, each is split just barely past the balance arm.

Here are pictures of watches for which the seller (usually somebody I can safely assume is more knowledgeable than myself)
has indicated a Guillaume balance:



Here things are bit more complicated.  Some balances show one screw past the balance arm, some two (or two holes), some
also have a screw directly at the arm.  The outlier here is the Stowa, which shows only a distinctly elongated tail.

Finally, here is a picture of the subject Tiffany balance:



This seems to me to have a lot more in common with the latter group than with the former, mixing a modest (but not immediately
truncated) tail with space for one screw plus a screw at the balance arm, yet another variation.

I hope this helps a bit at least as stimulation!