Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1900-01-11
MANY OLD WATCHES.
NEW YORK MANS COLLECTION
OF TlMEPiECES.
Orna ton of the Bridge Was the
Part of q Watch that the English
Maker Used to Expend Most Labor
and Pains Upon.

Two thousand watch movements;
1000 detached bridges; 100 old watches.
These are approximate figures for the
collection, not yet classified and num-
bered, 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
covers and receives the axle, jeweled or
otherwise, of the balance wheel. In
the old handmade watches the plate
was eXqusitely wrought and appears to
view when the brass cap Is removed
which covers the movement under the
various outer cases. 1t Is estimated
that one-third of the labor of making
watch of the early period was expended
on the bridge. No two handmade
bridges are ever alike. None of the old
watches contains a date, and until the
English law Of 1910 1t was not compul-
sorry 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
Ike a check OH each other. This bridge,
upon which the matchmaker exhausted
himself In characterization. is the key to
the period to which the watch belonged.
1t was customary to engrave head,
sometimes at the upper but more often
at the lower edge of the bridge. In the
earliest watches it was female head;
afterward it was the head of lion or
sometimes of an eagle. by and by the
popular hero of the day began to he
handed down to posterity on the bridges
Of the watches. In Mr.. Smiths cOllec
ton we find portraits of such distin-
guished people as Major Andre,
George ILL.,, Toussaint rOuverture,
George w., Lord Chatham, Admiral
Nelson and Lord North
At the time when the tulip craze in
vaded England from Holland the con-
ventional 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 ignor-
ant 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 enclrclng the
works, which at the time Mr.. Smith
discovered 1t the jeweler was about to
take off and throw away. Among all
the watchmakers Of New York there
are only three or four experts in old
movements who could repair Il 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. now
adays buy these queer old bulls eyes
over the counter for the value of the
cases, and except in few rare In
stances the latter go promptly into the
melting pot. Occasionally case made
of tortoise shell. or covered with shark
skin, or made of an alloy called pinch
beck, saves fine old timekeeper from
destruction.
The oldest watch of the collection was
made about 1890 by Thomas Tompion,
who died in 1880, such famous crafts.
man that his remains were entombed
in Westminster Abbey. Tompon is
called the Father of English Watch
makers" and side by side with him in
the famous abbey lies George Graham.
another illustrious matchmaker. This
old timepiece has but one hand. the dial
being spaced only in hours and quarter
hours.