AROUND HOME : Pocket Watches

COLLECTING WATCHES satisfies many interests--those of history, art and science. Tradition holds that Paul Henlein of Nuremberg developed the pocket watch about 1500. Those first watches told only the hour and were notoriously unreliable; it was the decoration that was admired. During the 17th Century, watch cases were created in a great variety of unusual forms; for example, as stars, skulls, crucifixes and shells. Cases were engraved, enameled or decorated with gold filigree, tortoise-shell or leather and silver pin-work. Such “form watches,” with their elaborate workmanship, continued to be made during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Mechanically, the development of the balance spring in 1675 was most important in terms of improved timekeeping. It had, however, little effect on the external form of the watch, since it took up so little space. There were no major changes until the 19th Century, which saw the transition of watchmaking from a craft to an industry. Parts had been made by hand until about 1850, when machine methods were introduced into the United States. Soon Switzerland and the United States were the largest watch manufacturers. The oldest Swiss factory, Vacheron & Constantin, founded in 1785, introduced the principle of interchangeability of parts in 1838, about two decades after American clockmaker Eli Terry introduced the concept to clock-making. Another important and prestigious Swiss watchmaking firm was that of Patek Philippe & Cie., founded in 1839.

One of the most famous of the low-priced American watches--and the first successful one--was the brass-movement 19th-Century Waterbury “long wind” watch that sold for $3.50; the Ingersoll brothers commissioned Waterbury to make an inexpensive watch to sell at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The Yankee model, which sold for $1, was henceforth called a “dollar watch.” Compare that to a mechanism such as the expensive early-20th-Century gold repeater watch by the celebrated London firm of Dent, with a double split-second chronograph, a perpetual calendar with a hand to indicate the leap years and a minute repeater.

Some sales figures from recent auctions indicate the continuing appeal of elaborate decoration: a French gold-and-enamel cylinder watch, movement signed Breguet, Paris ($2,300); a gold hunter-cased watch, Copenhagen, 19th Century ($1,430); a gold pocket chronometer, English, 19th Century ($7,620); a gold-and-enamel musical watch, circa 1820, Switzerland ($19,000).

Today, wristwatches from the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s are eagerly being sought, from Hamilton and Gruen watches for under $100 to such special items as an early-20th-Century gold world-time wristwatch from Patek Philippe for $20,000. The range is wide, the variety endless.

Pocket watches can be found at Elizabeth Lucas Collection in Santa Monica; Village Watchworks in Westwood; the Watch Co . and Second Time Around Watch Co. in Los Angeles; Frances Klein in Beverly Hills; Beaded Bird in Venice; Jay’s Antiques in Pasadena, and Antique Seller in San Diego.