Collecting Antique Pocket Watches

Collecting antique watches is a real labor of love. Watch collectors have in common a fascination with history and technology, with craftsmanship, and with true artistry. Admiration of mechanical objects reflects intense interest in how history progressed in one certain area-in this case, time calculation-and any great collection would likely show timepieces as they became more sophisticated and intricate. I would suggest, then, that the collector would study the experts on his or her specialty and have details on the changes in design and the makers who reflected those changes. In other words, to study the measurement of time is itself a study of history!

I would also suggest that a serious collector would also try to hone in on either one or two expert period watchmakers or on a particular style or type of timepiece. Since I love music and craftsmanship so much I am particularly attracted to those lovely musical timepieces that watchmakers began to produce in the Regency Era of England on through the post-Regency Era. This would encompass the early 1800s through and into the 1880s. That is a narrow enough period for one to concentrate quite a lot of knowledge of styles and types of watches.
Basically, musical watches were sort of "show off accessories" for people who had the money to make purchases which would impress their peers and add to their aura of elegance and title. The first musical watchmaker was Philippe Samuel Meylan and his creating had a radial disc movement. Most of the watches made during his era played simple traditional Swiss tunes or national anthems of England and France. Some of the other better known makers were Henri Capt of Italy, Jean Antoine Lepine and also Le Roy of Paris. A watch is really a portable clock, which was first seen in the 1500s. But in the next two centuries following this, watches became smaller and more portable than those first cumbersome specimens, which were portable only in the sense that they could be carried in the arms or later in a large pocket.