This website is dedicated to Gruen watches. Gruen was once one of the most renowned brands in watchmaking in America. Unfortunately like nearly all other American watch brands the original company did not survive the challenge of the shift to the quartz technology in the 1970’s. Although there are still modern battery operated Gruen watches for sale, most of the collectors prefer the vintage mechanical watches which were produced from 1894 until 1972. Gruen always used to produce high quality watches and most of them still work today and are highly collectable. When the Gruen Watch Co. ceased operations nearly all information concerning serial numbers, watch types etc. were destroyed or lost. Since the emergence of the internet and even before the ever growing number of Gruen lovers started researching and collecting material and up to today we already have a good insight into the brand history.
Most merits have earned Paul Schliesser, who has written the first complete history of the brand which is available for free download here. A lot of reserch on Gruen watches was done by Mike Barnett, who runs his own website with heaps of information on Gruen. He also published a number of books on Gruen which can be highly recommended.
Nevertheless, which was missing so far was a catalogue of all different Gruen watches produced during the time span of 80 years bringing together all information like style number, year of production, type of movement, name of the watch etc.. This website tries to fill this gap. You can already explore more than 800 watches which are classified according to different categories (pocket watches, Quadron, Curex, Veri-Thin, Gruen 21, Autowind etc.). If you search a certain watch, just type the marking of the watch dial (e.g. „Gruen Precision 17 Jewels“) into the search field on the upper right corner of this window and press return. If you look just for these words in the same order the term should be placed in quotation marks because you will be shown otherwise all watches containing those terms in any order. You can also make a selection according to the movement (3 digits with sometimes a pre- or suffix, eg. „335R“) or the style number (4 digits, sometimes with leading zeros, e.g. „0117“). The old pocket watches can also be selected according to their 6 digit movement serial number (not to be confused with the case serial number which is something totally different). If you search for example a watch with the movement number 129330, just enter #129 into the search field and you will see all pocket watches with a movement number starting with 129.
This watch gallery grows nearly every day. Next to the own watches of the author there are many watches from other sellers and collectors. More than 200 people mostly with watches which were sold on ebay already gave their permsssion to publish their pictures. Sometimes those pictures did not fit the style and format of this gallery and were adjusted accordingly.
If you want to support this project, please submit pictures of your watches to the author. 
Ideally you show a picture of the front, at least two sides and the back. Very important is also a picture of the inner watch cover and the movement. If you are not sure just have a look at the other watches in the gallery. If possible the format should be 3 times the height and 4 times the length, eg. 400 x 600, 600 x 800, 750 x 1000, 900 x 1200 or higher pixels . Other sizes will be adjusted to fit the format. The resolution of the pictures should be as high as possible but also pictures with a lower resolution will be published. I prefer single-colored backgrounds because they do not distract the viewer from the watch and they are easier to adopt to the standard format. Nevertheless I am happy about every picture for the gallery, especially of those watches which are not already in the gallery or where your pictures are better than the ones I have already published. I will for sure also credit the photograher. This website does not sell any watches but if you want to sell yours just state the link of your website or your ebay name and I will include it in the gallery next to the pictures. I am sure this will also enhance your chance to sell a watch becuase it increases traffic on your offer or website.
Just one more remark: The original of this website was set up in German and therefore the menubar still shows German expressions and will link you to the German website. If you do not want to use a translator like Googel Translate to read those sites please just ignore the menu bar. There are many more chapters on the Gruen family, the Gruen Watch Co., the watches etc. which still wait to be translated into English. As such this would be not a big deal but since I started this website two years ago I frequently changed and added information and it is quite cumbersome to change everything in two languages. Furthermore the last chapters are not written yet. Once I have the feeling that everything is close to completion (which it most probably will never be) I start the translation of the other websites into English. I know my English is far from perfect so I welcome every help and advice for correction. The same applies for textual and typing errors in the description of watches or the text. This project is not supposed to be a one man show and I appreciate support from every side.
Have fun, Peter