Moseley were a long-established American maker of fine-quality WW Type (Webster-Whitcombe) watchmaking lathes - production from their factory in Elgin, Illinois, spanning a period from the late 19th century to around the third decade of the 20th. Competition in the watch-lathe business was always fierce and the company were eventually incorporated into C. & E. Marshall of Chicago, who also marketed the Marshall and Peerless WW type lathes.
Moseley lathes were, in the parlance of the time, "all-hard" - meaning that they were of superior quality, not a poor imitation of the real thing - of which there were many -and used top-quality materials, properly prepared and carefully assembled by skilled craftsmen.
In the words of the catalog: " The Headstock Spindle which receives the Chucks, the Loose Bearing which is fitted to the Spindle, and the Front and Rear Bushings in which they run are all made of  the Best Quality of High Carbon Crucible Tool Steel carefully Tempered to a High Degree of Hardness and Ground to Standard and Alignment by Special Grinding machinery, using Special Carborundum and Alundum Abrasive Wheels."
The spindle was assembled into its "Double Combination 3 and 45-degrees angle" bearings before being finish ground on the internal, collet-locating taper - the only way of ensuring absolute concentricity in this most important of components. The spindle assembly was adjusted by just one slotted and knurled nut at its left-hand end - whilst access to the oiling holes was by moving back the "sprung" dust shields fitted to each side of both bearings .
The hard-rubber 4-step headstock-spindle pulley wheel was hot moulded onto a metal centre boss and given a single ring of 60 indexing holes around the outer (metal) face of its largest diameter - the knurled-head indexing pin used to located the pulley (No. 18 below) being manufactured from tool steel. The durability of this type of "all-hard" headstock is well known, and several manufacturers have claimed incredible life spans under normal operating conditions; Moseley were no exception and proudly announced that lathes over thirty years old, which had been back to the works for "minor repairs", had headstock bearings in " as good a condition as when they were first sent out. "
Both the headstock and tailstock were each locked to the bed by a single clamp, the arrangement for each assembly being identically and neatly engineered with the eccentric operating rods passing through their respective casting to emerge conveniently for the operator's fingers on the end faces (Nos. 22 and 31 below).
The original standard tailstock was of the traditional "push" type, with a simple sliding barrel (made from hardened, ground and lapped tool steel) locked by an eccentric and lever. The barrel was fitted with a taper in one end to hold the necessary fittings - and provided with an ejection slot to remove them. As an optional extra, a screw-feed tailstock was offered - and described by the makers as being for " a heavier class of  drilling and other operations …"