Calling all Pocket Watch Buffs

Did someone mention Seth Thomas? I don't have to many of those but I do have this lovely double signed lever set Private label Seth Thomas 18s " Favorite" from Cyrus N Gibbs. I have gleaned a lot of history of this watch through genealogical research. This is the only known Cyrus Gibbs Seth Thomas example so far known of in latter day research of the brand.

I have recently discovered the world of pocket watches due to buying some watches with Unitas 6497 movements as a first step into watchmaking.

The movement is what interests me most about watches, along with any historical significance, and as I am now discovering pocket watches have such an amazing variety of movements at prices that are much more affordable than equivalently interesting wristwatches.

But I thought I would share my new to me Omega 39 Chro that I have bought as a project to motivate me to keep improving my watchmaking skills. Unfortunately it is a couple of chips in the dial and is missing the second hand, but otherwise it is in very nice condition. It runs, but not well so hopefully a service should help!

Do you think I have any chance of finding a replacement dial for this model? And what do people recommend for polishing the glass? It is quite hazy at the moment.

Thank you! The dial is actually very nice expect for the small chipping (at the 11 and 1 marks) so even if I cannot find a replacement I will still be happy with it. But I will keep a lookout and in the meantime try to resist starting the service!

I think you are right. The movement looks so modern and fresh that it is easy to forget that it is ~92 years old and the great-great-great grandfather of the 321!

My slightly older version says hello

Very nice! It would be really fun to collect all the 321 predecessor movements, but the price might be a bit unaffordable for the later generations. Hopefully I can get the 18 & 19 Chro at least!

Whilst on a Chronograph theme....

Snagged this one before the Silver prices went mental earlier on in the year or maybe late last year, lovely case and movement showing close to no wear or abuse.
Sadly with the increase in silver prices beautiful PW's like this are going to be harder to find and as I would far prefer silver to anything else except Karet gold which is prohibitively expensive now it will cut down on my collection of more PW's I suspect.

How do you guys display your pocket watches? I now own a few and would like to get the watches out of the drawer, maybe even hang them on my wall if I could find a nice way to arrange them. I need inspiration, post pics! 😎

I don't display mine, I just cycle through carrying them. Maybe I should build a case like what Jim has to display the ones that aren't running and just sit in a box.

@Nupero You beat me to it. I've been browsing Amazon, Etsy, and other usual suspects and while they are full of display cases for wrist watches, there is almost nothing for pocket watches (except maybe single watch watch-boxes and glass domes).

A really nice display. I was actually looking for something exactly like this, but struggled to find anything (I was using shadow boxes as the search term, but maybe they are not called that?) May I ask where you bought it from?

Really nice looking watch and case. I agree with you that the huge rise in silver prices through 2025 has pretty much destabilized some of the nice silver pocket watches I am seeing at Estate Auctions but its not eliminating them entirely. Through a combination of ignorance by many auction houses as well as the silver metal munchers the listing of silver pocket watches has not improved in most cases so if you are still going to find silver opportunties as listings many times do not outline silver case weights and the silver buyers rarely know the weight approximations of for example 18Size full hunter silver cases.....I was able to high bid two fabulous coin silver full hunter cases recently at well below silver melt prices by understanding a nice 1880s 18S coin silver hunter case is going to be usually in the 3 to 4 ounce range.....I found most silver metal munchers rarely risked more than an assumption of one ounce of silver so bidding is brisk up to that one ounce level and they drop away entirely by the two ounce risk assumption. Both of these large hunter cases will be cleaned up and deployed to upgrade some of my nicer movements in plain silveroid cases. For example I have had a large 18S 21J Waltham Crescent Street sitting in an open face silveroid case running as a sidewinder for many many years. One of the two cases will be used to house this Waltham movement. The other case is a Key Wind 4 ounce case so it will also improve another movement I have not selected as yet. In March of 2025 as silver was just beginning to make its run my best deal involved an open face Hamilton 924 private label pictured only on the front side and indicated as non running. The case displayed so much silver patina it was almost black.....only two bidders so I got it for less than $25. I assumed the case was silver and the other notable impression I had from the one picture was the dial being both clean and double sunk. On receipt the movement worked just fine although clearly not cleaned in over a hundred years.
Anyways silver cased pocket watches are still an opportunity so I am not ignoring them like I have now done with karat gold cased watches.

I'll hazard that high silver prices also are bringing / will bring old pocket watches that have been sitting in the drawers to the market. So I would also see this as a potential opportunity.

Is silver case melting a thing? I suppose with these prices it is.

Back in the 70's many silver cased PW's were bought up and scrapped. Back then there was less of a price difference between gold and silver so it was perceived as worthwhile to scrap them, less so as gold outpaced silver prices in the following decades. In the last few years I had been picking up nice silver cased PW's for 25 to 45 dollars, made no difference if it were a 7 jewel or 21, sadly that's no longer the case. I of course will keep looking, it's surprising how many people have no clue when a case is silver or nickel.

Silver case melting is increasing at these prices but the refiners here in Southern Ontario Canada are very busy with a lot of coinage, sterling jewelry and tableware, candlesticks etc also going in for melt. The amount of stuff going in is having a short term affect of the actual buying price being at only about 50 to 60% of the melt price point. Apart from refining costs they seem to be factoring in the commodity sitting in inventory at risk of the price point coming down....
But there is little doubt that a decent full hunter working pocket watch is increasing in value through these estate auctions but again I think you can manage this situation...