What It's All About
The wristband on my watch broke today. This is the third time I had to
replace it, and the watch is only a couple of years old. Why is this?
Sure, today's watches are extremely accurate, go for years on batteries,
and are loaded with features like countdown timers and chronographs.
They're also extremely cheap. Perhaps too cheap.
Watches are being sold in vending machines. It's almost cheaper to buy
a new watch than it is to replace the batteries. It's gotten to the point
that watches are designed to be disposable, something you replace every
few years. That's why my watchband keeps breaking. Why make something that
lasts forever for a watch that'll only be around a few years?
With all the advanced features, there's one thing missing in today's
watches: QUALITY. That's why I like antique pocket watches. One only needs
to look at the beauty of a fancy watch dial, or the precise way a watch
case comes together, to realize that these were designed to last
centuries,
not years. There's something in the tick-tick-ticking of a fine piece of
precision machinery that beats the annoying "beep-beep" of today's watches
every time.
So welcome to my shrine to the pocket watch. I hope you enjoy your stay,
and come away with a small part of the wonder and respect I feel for the
people who built these miniature marvels. Precision machines that continue
to honour their builders long after those builders have passed on.
The Pocket Watch.
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If you are coming to this site hoping I'll be able to tell you how much
your watch is worth, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. I am not a
qualified watch appraiser, and don't have time to answer the dozens of
email a week I get on this. However, please check the "What's your Watch Worth?" section of the site for ways you can find
the value yourself.
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Most of the information on this site comes from other web sites
dealing with horology and pocket watches on the internet. If the page
doesn't have a menu similar to the one on the left, then it is someone
else's page. I also put a "*" beside links to
external sites. Selecting this takes you to the description of that
site.
I'd like to
thank each of these sites for making this excellent information
available and making my site possible. Select the links button for a list of
all the sites that I link to.
Note that I am NOT a watch expert. I happen to own a few cheap
pocket watches. After looking through the Internet for information on the
watches, I decided to put together this site so I had a list of the most
useful resources in one place. I do not buy and sell watches. I do
not repair watches. I am not a qualified watch appraiser.
I personally know very little about pocket watches aside from what I read
on the web sites I link to here.
What I do know how to do is read reference books. The book I use
the most is "Complete Price Guide to Watches" by Cooksey
Shugart, Tom Engle and Richard E. Gilbert (ISBN: 1574322915). If you want
to find out anything about your watch (especially American made pocket
watches), then this book is a must. If you get that book, you'll know
everything I know about pocket watches and watch collecting.
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