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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Schaffhausen, Switzerland · 1898 – 1966

Albert Pellaton

Partially verified

Automatic winding mechanisms

Life & work

Albert Pellaton is associated with the pawl-winding automatic system developed at a Schaffhausen manufacture, in which a cam and two pawls convert rotor motion in either direction into winding.

The system is notable for efficiency and for smooth rotor motion, and remained in use across several generations of calibres.

Training, contributions & innovations

  • The pawl-winding automatic system that bears his name
  • Contributed to technical leadership at a major Swiss manufacture

Inventions & patents

  • Patent records exist for the winding system; the specification details should be read directly rather than paraphrased from secondary accounts.

Signatures & markings on surviving work

  • Not a signing maker in the traditional sense: his work appears inside brand-signed calibres.

Collecting significance

Signatures on historic work were applied by retailers and by later hands as well as by makers, so attribution should rest on the movement's construction and on documented provenance rather than on the name alone. A specialist opinion is worth obtaining before any purchase made on the strength of a signature.

Diagram

12345let downstripcleanoilregulateorder of work; never skip letting down the mainspring
Schematic: order of work at the bench. An outline schematic drawn to show the arrangement of the parts discussed here. It is not a dimensioned working drawing and does not depict a particular maker's calibre.

Sources & references

  1. Britten, F. J., Old Clocks and Watches and Their Makers
  2. Loomes, B., reference works on British and European clockmakers (edition-dependent)
  3. Museum catalogue entries for signed examples

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