Antique 1762 Pocket Watch repair revisited

[Alcan]

I did a thread on this some time ago, but thought I'd re-visit it. A couple of years ago a friend showed me a damaged old pocket watch, handed down through the generations from his great-great uncle, an English sea captain. The watch was still in running condition until the morning he came downstairs and found his 5 year old grandson playing with it on the living room carpet. The watch was now in a million pieces.

He had picked up all the parts he could find, dragged a magnet across the carpet, even put a new bag in the vacuum cleaner and emptied it afterwards to retrieve any parts he might have missed. No luck, 3 wheels were missing.

This is where I got involved. First, I had the hallmarks on the case checked out and the watch was indeed from 1762, hallmarked Glasgow. Next, the maker's mark was J O Gilbert, London, and I did some research on him. It seems there was a John Gilbert in London in the mid 1700's, primarily making instruments such as a backstaff, astrolabe, brass telescopes, and other marine navigational devices. This seemed to fit, as navigators had to know the correct time when taking sightings. Some of Gilbert's works are in museums around the world:

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/sea...t&SortBy=maker

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collec...dnumber=747653

http://www.makingthemodernworld.org....-1820/TL.0378/

http://books.google.ca/books?id=OOr6...ilbert&f=false


So, on with the project. I'd thought it would have been easy to find someone to fabricate 3 new wheels to replace the missing ones, given today's technology, but that wasn't the case. The owner of the watch had already sent it back to his brother in England in hopes that he would be able to find someone to repair it, but no luck. In fact it got returned with the minute hand missing.

After 6 months of internet searching and inquiries I ended up at the British Horological Institute's website and hit paydirt. I was directed to Arthur Jones of Jones & Chambault, a transplanted Brit living in Belgium. Mr. Jones agreed to take on the job as a fill-in project.

Now to the next hurdle, getting the watch from Canada to Belgium. I tried pretty much every delivery company available; FedEx, UPS, Purolator, the lot. None would ship it because either a: watches are considered jewellery and they don't ship jewellery or b: due to its age its considered an antique and they don't ship antiques. We finally settled on Canada Post, keeping in mind that the maximum we could insure it for was $1,000.

The watch eventually found its way to Belgium, and Arthur Jones went to work on it. In addition to cutting 3 new wheels to replace the lost ones, he also completely overhauled the movement, replacing bushings and such as required. He also located and installed a period correct minute hand to replace the missing one.

Six months later, the project was finished. Mr. Jones shipped the watch back, we unpacked it, wound it, and........... it didn't run.

Uh oh, now what? After some poking around with it, we discovered the small piece of folded paper inserted between 2 of the wheels to prevent it from operating. I now realize that this was done to protect the movement while in transit, but it initially gave us some anxious moments until we removed the paper and it started ticking.

So, this family heirloom from 1762 is now up and running again, and will probably end up being willed to the grandson who played junior horologist with it in the first place.

A word on the movement, its a verge fusee drive. One of the problems faced by early watchmakers was that of inaccuracy as the mainspring unwound and decreased tension on the gear train. This was solved by the use of a fusee, a cone shaped pulley with a helical track around it. As the mainspring unwinds, it pulls the chain which in turn drives the fusee. The increasing radius of the fusee helps maintain torque on the gear train. By the way, each link in the chain is hand made.

I borrowed the watch back from the owner recently, so a friend with a good macro camera could take some shots. What we had originally seen as just some ornamental engraving turned out to be much more elaborate than that. Can you see the 2 birds and the smiling face in the upper plate? Considering it was all done by hand, its no wonder it took a year to make one!

[nowzen]

Its a beauty. Thanx for sharing.
It was a verge/fusee that got me into collecting pocket watches many years ago.

I was fascinated at the skills involved in making what looks like a tiny bicycle chain in a watch movement... especially when you consider the state of technology in the rest of society then. Since then, fusee has always been my favourite and this is an excellent example. Well done!

[L-16610]

I know nothing about pocket watches

But man, what a wondefull piece of history !!!!!

[johnswatch]

That is beautiful.

I'm on the lookout for a nice verge watch. How's the timekeeping? I believe many verge watches run very fast due to wear on the crown wheel.