Kreisler bracelet?

[KennethRSloan]

The bracelet attached to a recent ebay purchase (a vintage Seth Thomas D+D) is marked "Kreisler USA". It has rectangular, expanding links (which bring "Speidel" to my mind) and a folding clasp with 7 positions for micro-adjustment. It's functional enough, and appear to me to be right on the border between schlock and stylish. It goes well with the beater Seth Thomas, except that the lugs are 20mm and the bracelet is 19mm (which bothers only me, but..who else counts?)

As adjusted, the clasp is slightly offcenter on the underside of my wrist (the 12-side is too short). Part of that is due to the fact that I moved the micro-adjustment to the 4 (out of 7) slot.

So...questions:

a) does this bracelet have any intrinsic value?
b) can I do (or have done for me) radical surgery to MOVE a couple of links from the 12 end to the 6 end? I am unschooled in dealing with this type of link - there is no obvious screw or pin to remove. I suspect there is some way to remove/add links that involves bending metal, but I'm not inclined to experiment.

As is, as a beater, the combo works just fine, so I could just leave it alone. But, when I look at it, it feels like a "close enough for gov't work quick and dirty band replacement" done sometime in the 1960's - which has it's own kind of charm, I guess. I may end up leaving it as is, but I'd like that to be a choice - not a necessity caused by my ignorance.

Here's a picture that doesn't really show off the bracelet - if it matters, I can post new pictures to show the expanding links and the clasp, if it matters.

[vinylgreek]

Without a clear photo of the bracelet's underside it is impossible to answer your questions.

[KennethRSloan]

Without a clear photo of the bracelet's underside it is impossible to answer your questions.

Will this do?

[GlennO]

Not much value I'm afraid. I can't see inside the links but that looks like the same bracelet design as a Speidel Twistoflex. It's a very fiddly job but you can remove and reattach some links. I had to do one last year and I found this video helpful:

[Rdenney]

a) does this bracelet have any intrinsic value?
b) can I do (or have done for me) radical surgery to MOVE a couple of links from the 12 end to the 6 end? I am unschooled in dealing with this type of link - there is no obvious screw or pin to remove. I suspect there is some way to remove/add links that involves bending metal, but I'm not inclined to experiment.

a.) No.

b.) Why not? (See a.)

Rick "who'd rather just buy a strap" Denney

[KennethRSloan]

Actually...this is good news. As previously stated, the bracelet does not *quite* fit the watch (a pesky 1mm too small). So...it will be donated to Science and I'll use it to learn a bit about how to alter this kind of beast with mangling it.