Further to our blog post a couple of weeks ago, here’s another example of a pocket watch which may perhaps on the face of it look to be beyond repair. We like to think differently though! With the correct skills and tooling, we can tackle these challenging jobs.
The repair and restoration of vintage timepieces is very specialist work. These watches may be collectors’ items or family heirlooms and they often have a broad range of faults, simply due to the age of the piece. It’s often difficult or impossible to source parts – this can further add to the challenge. Vintage watches need very specific care and attention, and preserving originality and history is at the forefront of our minds.
Our head watchmaker is very experienced in the repair and restoration of vintage watches. He has worked on pieces of real historical importance and is able to work on a huge range of pocket watches with a variety of different escapements – from verge to duplex, English lever and beyond! In addition to his experience, we have a good stock of parts from our many years of tackling such restorations. From new old stock hunter pocket watch glasses through to hand sets, there’s every chance we can find a suitable part from our stock of spares.
Indeed we needed to go through our spares to find a number of suitable parts for this pocket watch. As you can see from the before images, it was in poor condition. It arrived full of rust, missing both the hour and minute hand as well as both glasses.
The movement was thoroughly serviced restoring it to excellent working order. From our healthy stock of vintage pocket watch hands we were able to find a minute and hour hand appropriate from this timepiece. We also found a pair of suitable new old stock glasses from our stock. The profile and sizes of these glasses is unusual, so you need the correct type to fit. Fitting a modern watch glass is not an option!
The case was given a light polish to compliment the new glass, hands and the newly restored movement. As you can see, the difference between before and after is striking! Our client was absolutely delighted with the outcome and this pocket watch is ready for many more years of reliable service.
Yours sincerely
David Clark PJDip PJGemDip CertGA
Managing Director