Skip to content
The Encyclopedia of Horology

Pocket watches · Escapement

Cylinder Watches

Verified

Watches using the cylinder (horizontal) escapement, in which a hollow cut cylinder on the balance staff receives impulse directly from raised escape-wheel teeth.

Mechanism

Escape-wheel teeth enter and leave the cut in the cylinder, giving impulse on both entry and exit while remaining in contact for the rest of the cycle. This permitted thin cases but wore quickly and was sensitive to lubrication.

Typical characteristics

  • Notably flatter movement than a verge of comparable date
  • Escape wheel with raised, wedge-shaped teeth
  • Frictional rest escapement — the balance is never fully free

Identification characteristics

  • Steel or ruby cylinder visible on the balance staff
  • Thin overall movement height
  • Often found in nineteenth-century Swiss and French slim dress watches

Collector significance

The escapement that made the thin dress pocket watch possible, and an important step toward the detached lever.

Known variations

  • Ruby cylinder
  • Steel cylinder
  • Gilt Swiss bar-movement cylinder

Photographs

Cylinder Watch Movement (48709170233)
Cylinder Watch Movement (48709170233) — Auckland Museum Collections from Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, CC BY 2.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

Photographs are illustrative examples of the type, not necessarily the exact object described. Verify details against the source file page.

Sources & references

  1. Gazeley, W. J., Clock and Watch Escapements

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