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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Pocket watches · Complication

Alarm Pocket Watches

Partially verified

Watches fitted with a striking mechanism triggered automatically at a pre-set time rather than on demand, sounding a bell or gong.

Mechanism

A trip lever releases the alarm train when the hour hand (or a marker disc) reaches the pre-set position, running until the alarm spring is exhausted or the mechanism is stopped.

Typical characteristics

  • Separate alarm-setting disc or hand on the dial
  • Dedicated alarm barrel and train
  • Often a louder single hammer and bell than a repeater's gongs

Identification characteristics

  • Extra hand or rotating disc for alarm setting
  • Separate winding square or crown for the alarm train

Collector significance

A functional complication whose practical importance declined as household and pocket clocks with alarms became common, but which remains a specialist collecting category.

Known variations

  • Bell alarm
  • Gong alarm
  • Travel alarm derivative forms

Related photographs

E. Mathey-Tissot minute-repeater, c. 1909
E. Mathey-Tissot minute-repeater, c. 1909 — Mathey-Tissot, CC BY-SA 2.5. Wikimedia Commons file page
John Leroux - Repeater Watch with the Judgement of Paris - Walters 58183
John Leroux - Repeater Watch with the Judgement of Paris - Walters 58183 — John Leroux (active ca. 1750-1800) (Clockmaker) George Michael Moser (English, 1704-1783), Public domain. Wikimedia Commons file page
Gallet minute repeater
Gallet minute repeater — Time Maven at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Wikimedia Commons file page

No confidently matched photograph of this subject has been found yet. These photographs show a closely related record, and are not examples of the type described on this page.

Sources & references

  1. General horological surveys; specific attribution of early examples is often disputed.

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.