Calling all Pocket Watch Buffs

TexOmega · Jan 12, 2023

TexOmega
@Duracuir1

Very nice execution!!!

Cannot wait to see/wear/enjoy this beautifully crafted piece of Art.

Duracuir1 · Jan 12, 2023

@TexOmega
Circa 1991 in either Atlanta, Houston or Dallas. I was the poster boy back then. Similar Stetson. The one in your photo is definitely more comfortable.

Fritz · Jan 12, 2023

Pure porn...

Canuck · Jan 12, 2023

Fritz
Pure porn...

Hard to top @Fritz ’s post, but I’ll try. A bit of eye candy.

1- Swiss, by Electa (Gallet), private label for jeweller Porte & Markle, Winnipeg. One of my prettiest Swiss movements, circa 1910.

2- Private label 1883 Waltham for G W Beall, Lindsay, Ontario. Movement marked Canadian Railroad Time Service. His son was a student at the Canadian Horological Institute, and I suspect had worked on this watch.

3- Waltham 1883 model with the Canadian Pacific Railway logo.

4- Hamilton grade 952, 19-jewels, one of three iterations built by Hamilton, closely related to the 23-jewel grade 950. Original case with hinged bezel, back, and inner cuvette. Reasonably scarce, and rare in this condition.

5- Waltham 1892 model, movement marked for the Canadian Railway Time Service.

Bernhard J · Jan 12, 2023

I am now just waiting for someone to come up with a Fasoldt ... 😁

Canuck · Jan 12, 2023

Bernhard J
I am now just waiting for someone to come up with a Fasoldt ... 😁

I wonder if there is such a thing on this side of the pond?

Alpha · Jan 12, 2023

Still feeling lots of love for the Elgin 😀

Canuck · Jan 12, 2023

I recently showed an Elgin that was close to being a twin of yours. I got an offer I couldn’t refuse, so someone else is enjoying it now. I miss it! But I still have 50 others to enjoy. I am currently enjoying my Hamilton 950B, along with two wrist watches. I’m sure I will be able to bear up!

Zapatta · Jan 12, 2023

Now, I'm really hooked on pocket watches!

Waiting for black Longines and looking to get another Fab Suisse 😁

Canuck · Jan 12, 2023

You have finally discovered how much more interesting pocket watches are, than wrist watches (IMHO). Pocket watches have been around for centuries! Wrist watches only 100+ years. So much more history! And wrist watches are the product of hundreds of years of pocket watch evolution, without which wrist watches would not exist. The wrist watch probably wins hands down from an engineering point of view, but aesthetically, pocket watches win hands down. Again, my opinion.

Bernhard J · Jan 13, 2023

Yes, indeed. Here is one I am waiting to get in my hands. It is an early split seconds chronograph. Thanks again to David Penny for his explicite permission granted to me to use his photos.

Canuck · Jan 13, 2023

The movement is marked “partly Swiss”, and “Watchmaker to the Queen”. So likely 19th century? You must have some more background on this interesting artifact?

Bernhard J · Jan 16, 2023

Yes, it is hallmarked 1872. Nicole was inventor of both, the system for keyless winding as seen in this watch, and of the heart shaped cam for returning chronograph hands to zero. "Dent" is, as often, the trade agent "only". The basic movement, including the keyless winding, clearly is made in England. Interestingly the same kind of caliber is seen with and without the "partly Swiss" mark. One can only speculate that parts of the chronograph mechanism are meant therewith.

Here is another and earlier "Dent", which I have since decades, with the same keyless system and hallmarked 1856. In this case with duplex escapement. This watch is completely English made. 😉.

zebrespace · Jan 16, 2023

Sold last month

Canuck · Jan 16, 2023

Bernhard J
Yes, it is hallmarked 1872. Nicole was inventor of both, the system for keyless winding as seen in this watch, and of the heart shaped cam for returning chronograph hands to zero. "Dent" is, as often, the trade agent "only". The basic movement, including the keyless winding, clearly is made in England. Interestingly the same kind of caliber is seen with and without the "partly Swiss" mark. One can only speculate that parts of the chronograph mechanism are meant therewith.

Here is another and earlier "Dent", which I have since decades, with the same keyless system and hallmarked 1856. In this case with duplex escapement. This watch is completely English made. 😉.

I’m looking at the escape wheel on your Dent. I don’t see a lever! But the escape wheel doesn’t look like a cylinder or duplex escapement. What can you tell me about the escapement?

Edited to add:

I just re-read your post on this Dent, and you did say it has a duplex escapement. I find it odd that a maker such as Dent used a duplex escapement rather than a lever.

zebrespace · Jan 16, 2023

Tavannes 8 Days

Canuck · Jan 16, 2023

zebrespace
Tavannes 8 Days

That is one serious pocket watch! Certainly not one to carry in a typical trouser watch pocket. More likely a boudoir or parlour timekeeper, or travel clock?

Bernhard J · Jan 16, 2023

Canuck
I just re-read your post on this Dent, and you did say it has a duplex escapement. I find it odd that a maker such as Dent used a duplex escapement rather than a lever.

Well, in the first half of the 19th century the English makers quite often combined the duplex escapement with compensation balances. The chronometer escapement was regarded as top of the range, followed by the duplex, and just then the various variants of the lever, which still needed to find a final form (just think for example about the five Massey variants alone), followed. If well made, a duplex escapement performed nearly as good as a detent escapement. The duplex faded out about middle of the the century, then being fully replaced by the lever escapement.

Here is a close up, the arrows pointing to an impuls tooth and a locking tooth.

Canuck · Jan 16, 2023

Thank you for that. The only duplex escapement I have ever encountered were on cheap American made stuff (Waterbury, as I recall), so the Dent appears to have been better made, and a better design.

jyles_baldemor · Jan 16, 2023

Been interested in getting a pocket watch. There something about it that draws me towards it everytime I see it.