a few experts have been kind enough to respond to me. elgin used a beryllium alloy they called beryl-x. hamilton used invar, which i knew they had in pocket watches, but hadn't noted a white color. this same source believes that the wrist calibers used th...
...used Invar balance wheels in its pocketwatches for decades. This alloy is silver-colored. I can't recall right now whether Hamilton's wristwatches also employed Invar.
the hamilton wrist balance wheels were invar, but, in the later calibers, the hairsprings were. not much of a PW fellow, but i should have remembered the 992- gorgeous thing that it is.
Steel balance wheels, both with flat and round rims, were popular in the mid-to-low grade fusee watches that were manufactures all over europe, particularly common in the watches of Liverpool and the rest of the British industry of the time A
it seems the silver colored balanced wheel actually use different kind of material, and perform slightly different than the regular one. how about silver colored balance wheel just simple colored for aesthetic purpose?
The LM1 in white gold has a silver-colored balance wheel (the rose gold version has a gold-colored balance wheel) I think it's quite an interesting feature, and the first watch I've ever noticed to have different colored balance wheel for different case m...
Although I suppose this is more grey than silver: In this case the balance wheel is made out of titanium to keep the whole mechanism light, and even in the gold colored version of the watch the balance wheel is also grey...
Untold numbers of da balances were and are made in other than gold coloration. Gold aesthetically denotes quality and has da low chemical reactivity. Dis resistance to oxidation insures dat da poise and rate of da uhren ist unaffected by oxidation either ...