Pocketwatches
A
pocket watch (or pocket watch) usually is a strapless personal
timepiece that is carried in a pocket. The display is traditionally
analog. Pocket watches generally have a chain to be secured
to a waistcoat, lapel, or belt loop (the chain or ornaments on
it being known as fobs), as well as a hinged cover to protect
the face of the watch. Such covers are not always present. Also
common are fasteners designed to be put through a buttonhole and
worn in a jacket or waistcoat, this sort being frequently associated
with and named after train conductors.
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MontreGousset
Pocket Watch
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An
early reference to the pocket watch is in a letter in November
1462 from the Italian clockmaker Bartholomew Manfredi to the Marchese
di Manta, where he offers him a 'pocket clock' better than that
belonging to the Duke of Modena. By the end of the 15th Century,
spring-driven clocks appeared in Italy, and in Germany. Peter Henlein,
a master locksmith of Nuremberg, was regularly manufacturing pocket
watches by 1510. Thereafter, pocket watch manufacture spread throughout
the rest of Europe as the 16th Century progressed.
Pocket
watches are commonly regarded as being one of two types: the
open faced watch or the hunter cased watch (also called savonette
from the French). The latter has a hinged front cover that protects
the face and crystal of the watch. It can also serve as a light
collector to illuminate the dial in relatively dim lighting conditions.
Since
the separate dial that marks the passage of seconds is traditionally
placed closest to the six o'clock position, this means usually the
stem (or pendant) of an open faced pocket watch is set at its twelve
o'clock position. The hunter's stem is placed most commonly at the
three o'clock position. When read, the open faced is held with the
stem straight up and the hunter is read by turning the watch 90°
with the stem pointing to the right.
Modern
manufacturers of pocket watches, especially those watches
with a quartz movement, are not bound by tradition when regarding
the orientation of movements and the cases they are inserted into
(open-faced or hunter).
Sometimes,
what appears to be a mechanism intended for use in a wristwatch
is used as the mechanism for a pocket watch.
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Patek
Philippe
Pocket Watch
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Early
Pocket Watches
The
watch was first created in the 16th century when the spring driven
clock was invented. These watches were at first quite big and boxy
and were worn around the neck. It was not for another century that
it became common to wear a watch in a pocket.
Use In Railroading In The United States
The
rise of railroading during the last half of the 19th century led
to the widespread use of pocket watches. Because of the likelihood
of train wrecks and other accidents if all railroad workers did
not accurately know the current time, pocket watches became required
equipment for all railroad workers.
The
first steps toward codified standards for railroad-grade watches
were taken in 1887 when the American Railway Association held a
meeting to define basic standards for watches. However, it took
a disaster to bring about widespread acceptance of stringent standards.
A famous train wreck on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway
in Kipton, Ohio on April 19, 1891 occurred because one of the engineers'
watches had stopped for 4 minutes. The railroad officials commissioned
Webb C. Ball as their Chief Time Inspector, in order to establish
precision standards and a reliable timepiece inspection system for
Railroad chronometers. This led to the adoption in 1893 of stringent
standards for pocket watches used in railroading. These railroad-grade
pocket watches, as they became colloquially known, had to meet the
General Railroad Timepiece Standards adopted in 1893 by almost all
railroads. These standards read, in part:
"...open
faced, size 16 or 18, have a minimum of 17 jewels, adjusted to at
least five positions, keep time accurately to within 30 seconds
a week, adjusted to temps of 34 to 100 °F. have a double roller,
steel escape wheel, lever set, regulator, winding stem at 12 o'clock,
and have bold black Arabic numerals on a white dial, with black
hands."
Railroad
employees to this day are required to keep their watches on time,
and are subject to spot checks by their superiors at any time. Failure
to keep their watches on time can lead to disciplinary action, due
to the gravely serious safety issues involved.
Additional
requirements were adopted in later years in response to additional
needs; for example, the adoption of the diesel-electric locomotive
led to new standards from the 1940s on specifying that timekeeping
accuracy could not be affected by electromagnetic fields.
Decline In Popularity
Pocket
watches are not common in modern times, having been superseded
by wristwatches. Up until about the turn of the 20th century, though,
the pocket watch was predominant and the wristwatch was considered
feminine and unmanly. In men's fashions, pocket watches began to
be superseded by wristwatches around the time of World War I, when
officers in the field began to appreciate that a watch worn on the
wrist was more easily accessed than one kept in a pocket. However,
pocket watches continued to be widely used in railroading
even as their popularity declined elsewhere.
For
a few years in the late 1970s and 1980s three-piece suits for men
returned to fashion, and this led to small resurgence in pocketwatches,
as some men actually began using the vest pocket for its original
purpose. Since then, a few watch companies make pocketwatches, and
they have their firm adherents. However, in the U.S.A. for most
men, most of the time, a pocket watch must be carried in
a hip pocket,
and
the more recent advent of mobile phones and other gadgets that must
be worn on the waist has made the prospect of carrying an additional
item in that area less appealing, especially since all cell phones
and similar devices tell the time. Yet in their time-telling capacity
such devices essentially function as pocketwatches, albeit in novel
form.
In
the United States, a gift of a gold-cased pocket watch is
traditionally awarded to an employee upon his or her retirement.
In that capacity, a "gold watch" has become a cultural
symbol alluding to retirement, obsolescence, and old age.
Pocket Watches In Fiction
• A pocket watch, and a chain for it, play a crucial
role in the classic O. Henry short story "The Gift of the Magi."
• Frequently, pocket watches in fiction are used
to indicate time ticking away, or to disguise far more advanced
machinery. Many of these function in a time travel context, sometimes
as a time machine (rather than a machine that measures time):
• In the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, certified
state alchemists are given a pocket watch with a military symbol
on it. Real-life equivalents of this (modeled after the watch worn
by the character Edward Elric with the inscription "Don't Forget,
3. Oct. 10" engraved on the inside of the cover) is available
from various retailers (some of these have the date as "3 Oct.
11" instead, due to being modeled after the manga).
• In Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,
Alice follows the White Rabbit after seeing it take a pocket watch
out of its waistcoat-pocket.
• In most fiction involving hypnosis, a trance is induced
by having the victim follow a pocket watch swinging back and forth
in front of their eyes. Sometimes a wristwatch is substituted, which
the "hypnotist" has to "swing" by swivelling
the wrist; this is presumably done for ironic or humorous effect.
• In the Japanese tokusatsu program Kamen Rider Den-O,
a pocket watch plays an important role in the story. It is engraved
with the words "The past should give us hope."
• In Gankutsuou, the retro-futuristic anime adaptation
of The Count of Monte Cristo, Albert de Morcef is given a pocket
watch by the Count which is inscribed with the saying "Death
is certain, it's hour uncertain" in Latin.
