IMPROVEMENTS IN OR ADDITIONS TO SEALS FOR CHAINS, BARS FOR CHAINS, LOCKETS, AND CHARMS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS OR ADDITIONS MAY ALSO BE APPLIED TO WATCH KEYS
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George William Dawson at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 24th April 1875.
I, GEORGE WILLIAM DAWSON, of Birmingham, in the County of
Warwick, Manufacturing Jeweller, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN OR ADDITIONS TO SEALS FOR CHAINS, BARS
FOR CHAINS, LOCKETS, AND CHARMS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS OR ADDITIONS MAY ALSO
BE APPLIED TO WATCH KEYS," to be as follows :-
My Invention consists principally in applying to or combining with
scals for chains, bars for chains, lockets, and charms, a concealed watch
key constructed as hercin-after described, the said concealed watch key
when required being readily brought into a position for use. The said
concealed watch key may also be applied to ordinary watch keys.
I will describe my Invention as applied to a seal for a chain. In the
metallic ring-like frame or body of the seal I fix a tubular case in which
a watch key barrel slides and is supported by a coiled spring. The end
of this case is open at the edge of the seal, ring, or frame; and when the
watch key is released its spring projects it from the edge of the seal and

page_text: supports it in its withdrawn or projecting position. The spring {sliding
key is incapable of rotating in its case, and by means of an enlarged part
at its base is prevented from being wholly withdrawn from its case. The
spring sliding key or key barrel is held in its concealed position in the
seal when not required for use, and released when required for use by |
means of a small lever jointed to the outer side of the tubular case. The
end of the upper arm of this lever is pointed, the said pointed arm being
pressed through an opening in the case of the sliding key by a spring
acting on the lower arm of the lever. In the sliding key is a hole
of a size proper for the pointed arm of the lever to pass into it.
When the spring sliding key is pressed home in its case in the seal so as
to conceal it, the said hole in the said key comes opposite the pointed
and of the lever, which lever snaps into the said hole and thereby
securely holds the watch key in its concealed position in the seal. The
spring sliding key is released for use by means of a small pusher passing
from the edge of the scal and attached to the lower arm of the lever. By
pressing inwards the said pusher it causes the upper pointed arm of the
lever to be withdrawn from the hole in the watch key when the latter is
released and is projected from the edge of the seal by its spring.
The pusher described may be made to form one of the pins or axcs
upon which the swivelled loop or bow of the scal turns, but I do not
limit myself to this position of the pusher.
.
By thus combining a watch key with a scal, the said watch key
may either be concealed or brought into a position for use at pleasure.
I apply the spring sliding watch key or key barrel to bars for chains
and to lockets and charms, substantially in the way described with
respect to its application to seals for chains.
The spring sliding watch key barrel may also be used in place of the
fixed barrels of ordinary watch keys.