The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-12-01
QUEER WATCHES
In a Collection of Ancient Time
pieces Owned In New York.


pieces Owned In New York.
New York Sun
Two thousand watch movements, 1000
detached bridges, 100 old watches These
are approximate figures for the collec-
ton, not yet classified and numbered. of
Calvin Rae Smith, professor of drawing
in the College Of the City of New
York.
The bridge of the watch IS the metal
plate at the back of the works which COW
ers and receives the axle. jeweled or
otherwise, of the balance wheel. In the
old handmade watches the plate was
exquisitely wrought and appears to view
when the brass cap Is removed which COW
ers the movement under the various out
er cases. 1t Is estimated that one
third of the labor of making a watch Of
the early period was expended on the
bridge. No two handmade bridges are
ever alike. None of the old watches
contains date, and until the English
law of 174O it was not compulsory for
the London maker to affix his name or
the number of the watch.
The movements made In London in
the last century for the Chinese market
are recognized at once by the peculiar
pattern of the bridge ornament. 1t is
said that Chinaman who could afford to
carry a watch at all carried two-to be
e.
upon which the matchmaker exhausted
himself in ornamentation is the key to
the period to which the watch belonged
It was customary to engraVe a head
sometimes a. the upper but more often
at the lower edge of the bridge. In the
earliest watches 1t was a female head;
afterward it was the head of a lion, or
sometimes an eagle. BY and by the pop
ular hero of the day began to be handed
down to posterity on the bridges of the
watches. In Mr.. Smiths collection we
find portraits of such distinguished peo-
pie as Maj Andre, George III, Toussaint
TOuverture, George ", Lord Chatham,
Admiral Nelson and Lord North.
At the time when the tulip craze in
vaded England from Holland the conven-
tional tulip appears in the bridges and
pillars of the watches Of the day.
1t is an axiom of the collector that the
modern matchmaker is densely ignorant
of the mechanism and value of an old
watch. One of the finest movements in
Mr. Smiths collection chimes the hours
the quarters and the minutes. The bell
Is a coil Of steel encircling the works.
which at the time Mr.. Smith discovered
it the jeweler was about to take off and
throw away Among all the watchmak-
ers of New York there are only three or
four experts in old movements who could
repair d London or Nuremberg watch of
100 years ago
Most of the old movements We're cased
in silver. Only dukes and princes aspired
to gold The jewelers. nowadays buy
these queer old bulls eyes over the coun-
ter for the value of the cases, and except
in few rare instances the latter go
promptly into the melting pot Occasion
ally case made of tortoise she'll or COW
cred with shark skin, or made of an alloy
called pinchbeck, saves q fine old time-
keeper from destruction.
The oldest watch of the collection was
made about 1896 by Thomas Tompion,
who died in 1870, sucn a famous craftsman
that mis- remains were entombed in West
Minister Abbey. Tompion is called the
Father of English watcEmakers, and
side by side with him in the famous abbey
lies George Graham, another illustrious
matchmaker This old timepiece has but
enc hand. the dial being spaced only in
hours and quarter hours