Research database
Timepiece Database
Object-level records for documented production families: movement, case, dial, technical specification, identification, variations, serial-number research, known examples, collecting and conservation. Records describe model families rather than individual objects, and every field states whether it is verified, partially verified or estimated.
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50 of 50 records shown. The database is designed to grow: the field structure supports thousands of entries and future image-assisted identification, which will always link back to these source records.
Pocket watch · United StatesWaltham Model 1857The movement that established interchangeable-part watchmaking in America, and the ancestor of every mass-produced American pocket watch that followed.c. 1857 – c. 1880s (the model remained in production long after its introduction)
Pocket watch · United StatesHamilton 992BThe archetypal late American railroad watch: a 21-jewel, lever-set, 16 size movement designed to meet railroad timekeeping inspection standards.Introduced in the 1940s and produced into the 1950s–60s
Pocket watch · United StatesIllinois Bunn SpecialIllinois's flagship railroad grade, named for the company president Jacob Bunn, and one of the most collected American railroad watches.Late nineteenth century into the 1930s; 60-hour grades belong to the later period
Pocket watch · EnglandEnglish Pair-Cased Verge WatchThe dominant English pocket watch for well over a century: a fusee-driven verge movement in two cases, with a pierced balance cock that is often the most individual thing about it.c. 1700 – c. 1850 (verge production continued for the cheap trade long after better escapements existed)Pocket watch · Switzerland (with French antecedents)Swiss Cylinder Lépine Pocket WatchThe thin, elegant watch that the Lépine calibre and the cylinder escapement made possible — and the form in which most nineteenth-century decorative pocket watches were sold.c. 1780s – early twentieth century for cheap productionPocket watch · United StatesWaltham VanguardWaltham's premier railroad grade, notable for high jewel counts and for the up-and-down power reserve indicator fitted to some examples.Late nineteenth century into the twentiethPocket watch · SwitzerlandIWC Jones-Calibre Pocket WatchThe movement that unites American factory method with Swiss labour: Jones brought American manufacturing ideas to Schaffhausen, and the resulting calibre is recognisable by its long, sweeping bridge.Later 1870s into the 1880sWristwatch · Switzerland (cases frequently hallmarked in Britain)Swiss Trench Watch (Wire-Lug Wristwatch)The transitional object between pocket and wrist: a small pocket-watch movement in a case with wire lugs, worn on the wrist because a soldier needed both hands.c. 1910 – c. 1925, concentrated around the First World War
Marine chronometer · EnglandEnglish Two-Day Marine ChronometerThe precision instrument of navigation: a detent-escapement timekeeper whose value lies not in keeping perfect time but in keeping a known, stable rate.Nineteenth century into the twentieth
Clock · EnglandEnglish Eight-Day Longcase ClockThe domestic precision clock of the English tradition: a seconds pendulum, an anchor escapement and an eight-day train, in a case whose regional style is often the best clue to where it was made.c. 1670 – c. 1870, with regional traditions persisting late
Clock · FranceFrench Carriage ClockThe portable clock of the nineteenth century: a spring-driven movement with a platform escapement in a glazed brass case with a handle, made for travelling and sold in enormous variety.c. 1830 – c. 1910 for the main commercial periodClock · Austria (later widely produced in Germany)Vienna Regulator Wall ClockAustria's contribution to precision domestic timekeeping: extremely light, finely finished weight-driven wall clocks whose early examples rival the best English regulators.Early nineteenth century for the finest Viennese work; commercial German production later in the centuryPocket watch · United StatesElgin B. W. RaymondElgin's longest-running named grade, carried from key-wind beginnings through to a fully adjusted twentieth-century railroad watch bearing the name of an early company director.Introduced in the nineteenth century as a name grade; the railroad-standard 16 size, lever-set form dates chiefly to the early twentieth century into the 1950sPocket watch · United StatesWaltham Crescent Street (845 movement)Waltham's premier named grade of the bridge-movement era, successor in spirit to the nineteenth-century Waltham high grades and a regular choice for American railroad service.Early twentieth century into the 1920s–30s for the railroad-grade formsPocket watch · United StatesHamilton 950BHamilton's top production railroad grade, carrying more jewels than the 992B and representing the commercial peak of the American railroad pocket watch just before the type's decline.Introduced in the 1940s, continuing into the last years of American railroad-grade pocket watch productionPocket watch · United StatesIllinois Sangamo SpecialIllinois's most prestigious named grade of the 1920s, sharing the Bunn Special's railroad ambitions with a higher jewel count and finer finishing.1920s into the 1930sPocket watch · United StatesBall Official StandardNot a manufacturer's own grade but a specification: Webb C. Ball's railroad time-service standard, met by movements built under contract by Hamilton, Waltham, Elgin and Illinois and sold under the Ball name.From the 1890s (following Ball's role in establishing railroad time standards) into the mid-twentieth centuryPocket watch · EnglandEnglish Liverpool Lever Fusee WatchThe English provincial trade's answer to Swiss competition: a fusee-and-chain movement with a table-roller lever escapement, strongly associated with the Liverpool and Lancashire watchmaking district.c. 1800 – c. 1880, with Liverpool-signed examples strongest in the mid-nineteenth centuryPocket watch · SwitzerlandPatek Philippe High-Grade Pocket WatchThe product of one of Geneva's most consistently prestigious houses, whose pocket watches range from finely finished plain time-only pieces to grande-complication watches carrying repeating, chronograph and calendar work.From the mid-nineteenth century (Patek, Czapek and later Patek Philippe) through the twentieth centuryPocket watch · SwitzerlandVacheron Constantin High-Grade Pocket WatchOne of Geneva's oldest continuously operating watch manufactures, producing finely finished lever pocket watches through the era in which the Swiss keyless system displaced key-wind practice worldwide.The firm traces continuous operation from the early nineteenth century; the keyless lever pocket watches discussed here belong chiefly to the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesPocket watch · SwitzerlandLongines High-Grade Pocket WatchA Swiss manufacture notable for one of the most complete and continuous archives of its own movement production, making individually documented dating unusually reliable for this maker.From the later nineteenth century, when Longines began signing and numbering its own movements, through the mid-twentieth centuryPocket watch · SwitzerlandIWC Lépine Pocket WatchA Swiss-American hybrid house's mainstream Lépine watch, built on the interchangeable-parts manufacturing approach the Jones calibre introduced to IWC.From the 1880s, following the Jones calibre's introduction, into the early twentieth centuryPocket watch · SwitzerlandOmega Lépine Pocket WatchThe movement that gave the Omega brand its name: a standardised, interchangeable-part 19-ligne calibre that helped establish Louis Brandt & Frère as a major volume manufacture.From the 1890s, following the introduction of the Omega calibre, into the early twentieth century
Pocket watch · SwitzerlandSwiss Quarter-Repeating Pocket WatchA watch that tells the time by sound as well as by sight, striking the hours and quarters on demand — a complication that required specialist makers distinct from ordinary lever-watch production.Mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, with quality and mechanism refinement varying widely by maker and datePocket watch · SwitzerlandRoskopf-Type Pin-Lever Pocket WatchGeorges Frédéric Roskopf's deliberately simplified, inexpensive lever watch, designed to bring a reliable timepiece within reach of ordinary working buyers rather than to compete with fine watchmaking on precision.From the 1860s–70s introduction of Roskopf's design, with pin-lever production continuing under many makers well into the twentieth centuryPocket watch · SwitzerlandEarly Swiss Keyless Stem-Wind Transitional WatchA watch caught mid-transition: an early attempt at winding and setting through the crown, before the keyless mechanism had settled into the standard form used for the rest of the watch's long history.c. 1850s–1880s, the period in which keyless winding progressively displaced key-wind across the Swiss tradePocket watch · JapanSeiko / Laurel-Era Japanese Pocket WatchAn early landmark of Japan's own watch industry: K. Hattori & Co.'s first domestically produced pocket watch, made under the Seikosha name that would eventually become Seiko.From the early twentieth century, following the Laurel's introduction in 1913, into the interwar period
Pocket watch · Soviet Union / RussiaMolnija Soviet Pocket WatchThe standard Soviet pocket watch of the postwar decades: a robust, mass-produced lever movement that remained in production largely unchanged for an unusually long run.From the mid-twentieth century, with production continuing for decades under the Molnija name
Pocket watch · United StatesSouth Bend StudebakerA popular-priced American grade named for the Studebaker family of South Bend, sold as a step below the premium railroad watches of the period.Early twentieth century, into the 1920s–1929 closure of the company
Pocket watch · United StatesRockford Railroad GradeOne of the smaller independent American factories to produce genuine railroad-grade movements before closing in 1915, valued by collectors for its comparative rarity next to Hamilton, Elgin and Waltham.Late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century, ending with the company's 1915 closureClock · United StatesConnecticut Shelf (Ogee) ClockThe classic mid-nineteenth-century American shelf clock, mass-produced in Connecticut's clock-manufacturing towns and sold across the country by peddlers and retailers.c. 1830s to the later nineteenth century, with the ogee case style at its most popular mid-centuryClock · FranceFrench Mantel Clock (Japy-type Movement)The industrially produced movement that stood behind a large share of nineteenth-century French mantel clocks, most of which are signed with a retailer's name rather than the movement maker's.Mid to late nineteenth century, when Japy-type movements were near-standard in the French mantel clock trade
Clock · EnglandEnglish Bracket ClockA portable spring-driven table clock developed in England from the late seventeenth century, combining a fusee movement with a carrying handle so it could be moved from room to room and still be relied on to keep time and strike the hours.Late seventeenth century through the nineteenth century; the classic ebonised form is most associated with c. 1670s–1700s, with later styles continuing the type
Clock · EnglandEnglish Precision RegulatorA specialised precision longcase clock, stripped of decoration and striking work, built to serve as a standard timekeeper for astronomical observation, scientific work or the regulation of other clocks and watches.From the early eighteenth century (following the introduction of the deadbeat escapement) through the nineteenth century
Clock · GermanyBlack Forest Cuckoo ClockThe characteristic carved clock of the Black Forest region, combining a weight-driven movement with a bellows-operated cuckoo call, and among the most recognisable clock forms produced anywhere in Europe.The cuckoo clock form dates to the mid-eighteenth century in the Black Forest; the widely recognised carved styles are chiefly a nineteenth-century and later development
Clock · Documented examples occur across Europe and in territories influenced by European public clock-building traditions; a specific example's country is established from its maker's plate and installation historyPublic Tower Clock MovementThe large, purpose-built movement that drove a public clock's exterior dials from within a church tower, town hall or similar civic building — an engineering discipline distinct from domestic and pocket clockwork, built to run reliably for decades with routine maintenance.The type as commonly encountered dates chiefly from the eighteenth through the early twentieth century, before electric and quartz systems became standard for new installationsClock · GermanyGerman 400-Day (Anniversary) Torsion ClockA clock designed to be wound roughly once a year, its slow-turning glass-domed pendulum disc making the torsion principle itself the ornament.c. 1880 (Aaron Crane's American patents) with the German glass-domed form dominant from c. 1900 onward and remaining in production through the 20th centuryClock · United States, Britain and other maritime manufacturing nationsShip's Bell ClockThe clock that struck the Navy's watches rather than the hour: a bulkhead instrument marking the traditional bell pattern of the ship's four-hour watch system.c. late 19th century to the present, with strong demand through both World Wars and continuing manufacture today for the nautical and gift marketWristwatch · Switzerland (cases frequently hallmarked in Britain for the British market)Borgel-Type Screw-Case Officer's WristwatchA step beyond the ordinary wire-lug trench watch: the same pocket-to-wrist conversion, but built on a patented one-piece screw case that sealed the small movement far better against the field conditions it was actually worn in.Borgel's case patent dates from 1891; screw-cased wristwatches of this type were sold heavily from c. 1905 through the First World War and into the 1920sWristwatch · GermanyBeobachtungsuhr (B-Uhr) Military Observation WatchA pocket-chronometer movement forced into a wristwatch case at aviation scale: the wristwatch not as a fashion or convenience item but as precision flight instrument, worn over a flight-suit sleeve and legible at a glance in the cockpit.Specification and issue concentrated in the period leading up to and during the Second World War, c. late 1930s – 1945Wristwatch · Switzerland (patents filed in Britain and Switzerland; manufactured in Switzerland)Harwood Self-Winding WristwatchThe commercially viable ancestor of every modern automatic wristwatch: a bumper weight swinging inside the case in place of the winding crown, and the clearest proof that the wristwatch by the later 1920s was being engineered on its own terms rather than as a miniaturised pocket watch.c. 1926 – c. 1931, when the Harwood company ceased trading in the difficult economic conditions of the early 1930sPocket watch · SwitzerlandGeneric Swiss Keyless Open-Face Lever Pocket Watch (Longines/Omega Generation)The everyday Swiss watch of the Longines and Omega generation: the same keyless lever architecture those houses branded and documented, but sold in vastly greater quantity without a manufacture's name attached.c. 1880s–1910s, the generation in which the keyless open-face lever watch became the Swiss trade's dominant everyday productPocket watch · SwitzerlandSwiss Minute-Repeating Pocket WatchA watch that tells the time by sound as well as by sight: a hammer-and-gong striking mechanism, fitted by specialist hands, that announces the hours, quarters and minutes on demand.Mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, with the finest work concentrated among a small number of specialist complication workshopsPocket watch · SwitzerlandSwiss Quarter-Repeating Verge Pocket WatchA watch from the verge escapement's own long era, combining the period's standard timekeeping mechanism with a striking complication that lets the hour and quarter be told by touch or sound alone.Mid-eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century, the period in which the verge escapement was still the pocket watch's standard escapementPocket watch · FranceFrench Lépine-Calibre Pocket WatchThe watch that gave its name to a whole family of movement architecture: Jean-Antoine Lépine's eighteenth-century bridge-and-bar design, still recognisable in French pocket watches made a century after his death.The Lépine calibre's essential layout dates from the later eighteenth century and remained in wide French production through the nineteenth centuryPocket watch · GermanyGerman Glashütte Precision Pocket WatchThe pocket watch of Saxony's own precision-watchmaking district, founded within living memory of the Swiss and English trades' long dominance, and built on a distinctive three-quarter-plate architecture still associated with German fine watchmaking.From the mid-nineteenth century, following Lange's establishment of watchmaking at Glashütte in 1845, through the early twentieth centuryPocket watch · JapanSeikosha Interwar and Wartime Pocket WatchThe generation of Seikosha pocket watches that followed the pioneering Laurel line, produced as Japan's own watch industry expanded through the interwar years and into wartime production.From the 1920s through the mid-1940s, as Seikosha's manufacturing capability expanded beyond the original Laurel-era productionPocket watch · EnglandEnglish Half-Hunter Silver Pocket WatchA silver hunter-case pocket watch modified with a small glazed window in its front cover so the wearer can check the time at a glance without opening the case — a practical English case convention rather than a distinct movement type.Mid-nineteenth century into the early twentieth century, with half-hunter cases remaining a common English case style throughout that spanPocket watch · EnglandEnglish Deck Watch (Subsidiary-Standard Navigational Timekeeper)A large, plain, robustly built pocket watch made to a navigational rather than decorative standard, carried between the chart table and the open deck to compare with the ship's marine chronometer and to transfer time ashore.Nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, with deck watches remaining in navigational use until electronic and satellite timekeeping displaced themPocket watch · United StatesAmerican Dollar Watch (Ingersoll/Waterbury-Type Pin-Lever)The classic American 'dollar watch' — a deliberately simplified, mass-produced timepiece that used stamped parts and minimal jewelling to bring a genuinely low-priced watch to a broad American market from the late nineteenth century onward.From the 1880s Waterbury introduction through the Ingersoll dollar-watch era of the 1890s–1920s, with pin-lever dollar and near-dollar watches continuing in American production into the mid-twentieth century