The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-01-23
WATCH ONLY A NICKEL SIZE
a New Triumph Scored by the Amer
lean Matchmaker.

The smallest watch yet turned out in
this country has just been put up on
the market. although few are on sale
yet. The new watch is the size of a 5
cent piece.
The smallest watch which American
watch factories had hitherto succeeded
in making had been as big as a quar-
ter, so the new watch is looked upon
as marking a distinct advance in the
industry in this country, where watches
have only been made for little more
than half century. Watchmakers
also regard it as Indicating that the
time is not far distant when Americans
will soon overtake the Old Worlds
Watchmakers, the Swiss, in turning out
watches of minute size.
The Swiss still makes watch small
er than the Americans, but the watch
just put on the market here by both
the Waltham and the Elgin companies.
the two largest matchmaking concerns
in this country, will have the advan-
the other watches made here have pos
sessed. namely. that Of being turned
out in quantity. Under American
methods the daily output in one fac
The new watch is the result of months
of patient endeavOr by the Watchmak-
ers and machinists- For every new
sized watch designed new machines
have to be made, and as the size of the
watch is reduced. by SO much more
must these machines be made more
delicate.
The smaller a watch the harder it is
to make. To make a watch half the
size of another is just twice as hard.
When it is considered that in every
watch there are 1913 parts it will be seen
what a task the watch machine experts
had in designing machines to make the
parts Of the new watch, many of them
almost infinitesimal in size. When the
machines are made the new watch can
be turned out as fast as the larger
sizes
In matchmaking in the big factories
another factor has to be considered in
the production of a new watch that is
smaller than those turned out before;
this is the ability of the hands en-
ployed to handle the parts. Half the
work of matchmaking in the big fac
tories is in educating the hands to han
die the parts. It takes months to do
this with every new watch that IS de-
signed and therein has lain the diff
Guilty in Initiating the Swiss in the
manufacture of small watches by
American methods.
In Switzerland the work is let out
bv the piece. A workman will make
just one part of a watch. as his father
did before him. In the biggest Amerf-
can factory, that of the Waltham COM
pany, watch is turned out by the
labor of 300 employees.
It has been the boast of the Swiss
that their tiny watches could never be
made by machinery. and it has been
just as much the endeavOr of Ameri-
can watehmakers to show their Swiss
rivals how sadly they moderated
American inventive genius. That is
why the new watch has been hailed
with so much pride.
The jewellers say that there viii al
ways be a demand for a watch smaller
than the last one people could obtain.
so before long a still smaller watch
1 may appear. The demand for an
/ American watch smaller than tl'at OF
/ the twent y-five-cent-piec size has long
been felt. especially since the custom
came in Of wearing chatelaine watches
/ The new watch is designed for this
and also to meet the demand Of a new
custom lately come into vogue with