Swiss

The last quarter of the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th century was a golden age period for keyless wind pocket watches. These watches are wound from the top crown and without the use of a winding key. The majority of such watches were made in either Switzerland or the USA and often to very high standards. Sadly the English competition was nominal and a little too late, however, there are of course a number of high grade products made, which are well worth watching out for.

I thought it useful to explain a few terms which are often used and abused by sellers on eBay.

1. CASE- these can be made of base metal, gun-metal, nickel, silver plated, solid silver, gold plated or filled, solid gold and finally platinium.

If the case is solid gold or silver there will be clear hall-marks or stamps to the inside cover of the case. The area to take care is the so called "gold filled" cases. At their best these can be substantial and high quality with two thick layers of gold sandwiching a base metal inner. Look out for the 20 or 25 year grades, they show practically no wear after 70-100 years and look and feel like solid gold, so do take care. The lower grades are 10 and 5 year and now often show significant wear, often termed "brassing" and can look very unattractive indeed.

Take care when reading a watch description, if not unsure, then ask the seller a question before the auction ends. These cases can be replated, but having tried it, they never look as good as the original, so please ask questions first!

2. DIAL - normally made of white vitreous enamel with black Roman or Arabic hour numerals and a subsidary seconds dial. The better quality watches have double sunk dials, or letters replacing numbers or even high colored or decorated. Try to avoid watches with damaged dials, whilst they can be repaired by professionals, this is a costly and expensive business.

Also do take care of the many "improved" dials one so often sees on eBay with a historical picture painted onto a dial centre or the numbers replaced by a "name". This type of work is detrimental to the pocket watch and dramatically reduces their value. Do check on authenticity and if it is a valuable watch, make sure the seller is reliable.

3. MOVEMENT - these come in all shapes and sizes from fob (ladies size watch) through to 18 size (about 55-58 mm diameter). The higher quality movements often have a damasced or highly engraved and decorated surface finish, this is very common with many of the American factories.

Do look out for watches with 15 jewels at the minimum, which means that90% of the movement is jewelled and of good quality, higher grades were often made to Rail-road specifications and can still be excellent time-keepers today and great presents. The majority of better grade watches will have a lever escapement and therefore capable of a very good performance and time-keeping.

There are many fine Swiss watches sold on eBay where the seller has not checked the movement carefully, by removing the balance cock or taking off the dial to look for a makers name or trade-mark. Such care and efffort can and does reap rewards once you start to know what to look for!

4. MAKERS- Recommended companies amongst the Swiss watch makers are : IWC, Le Coultre, Longines, Moser, Zenith, Touchon, Omega, Patek, Vacheron, and Rolex.

From England, fine makers such as Frodsham, Dent and Nicole Nielson amongst others are well worth buying and they make good investments. Watches from these makers were expensive in their day and were not mass produced and were made to very high standards indeed.

Whilst from the USA there is such a large element of choice that I will list a few of the more common brands and these include, Elgin, Hamilton, Illinois, and Waltham, there are many more and I would recommend buying the Complete Price Guide to Pocket Watches, latest edition, by Shugart which givesvery fulldetails and at 1200 pages long is a recommended read.

5. CHECKING YOUR WATCH- For many people I appreciate that the watch bought may be just as a gift or anniversary or birthday present. But please do take care with your purchase and make sure that the watch you have bought is as it was stated on the EBay auction. Do check for case wear, the glass is clear, dial as stated and the watch winds and the hands set easily.

6. WATCH CLEANING AND OVERHAUL- Awatch has to tell the time, and time-pieces from this period, 1870-1930 are capable of excellent time keeping and are ideal as every-day watches,and are beautifully made time-capsules from another era. All watches from this period should be cleaned and overhauled by a professional watch-maker/repairer who should give a 1 year guarantee on his work. However, do note that such work is not cheap and can easily cost anywhere between 30-250 depending on the amount of work the watch requires. If a watch is sold on eBay, requiring a clean and overhaul, do check with your local watch specialist for a guide price prior to bidding.

We are more than happy to answer questions relating to such watches on our eBay auctions as and when offered, happy hunting and wishing you all the very best of luck.