As far as we can tell, early man started making devices for telling time about 5 or 6 thousand years ago using sun dials and water clocks.

The Galileo designed the first pendulum clock around 1582, but it was never built. Cristiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist is credited with building the first pendulum clock accurate witin 1 minute a day in 1656.

Huygens developed the balance wheel and spring assembly (the heart of the modern mechanical watch movement) around 1675. Several improvements were made throughout the 18th century to improve accuracy and portability.

The American Pocket Watch
American pocket watches of the 19th and early 20th centuries set the standard for quality and excellence worldwide. Their jeweled movements included beautiful damaskeening and were quite expensive at the time. The fact that these timepieces continue to keep excellent time a century or more after their manufacture is a testimonial to the American craftsmen who built them. For more information visit A Walk through Time by the NIST Physics Laboratory. Links to more watch history can be found at Horology.com and The History of Watches

The major American watch manufacturers included, Elgin, Hamilton, and Waltham. Other quality American manufacturers included Hampton, Howard, Illinois and Rockford.

American pocket watches produced by these companies are a good choice.

Generally, quality movements have 7 or more jewels and the more jewels the better. Anywhere in a watch where metal rubs against metal, there is going to be wear. Typically better grade movements have tiny man made rubies or sapphires at these wear points. Movements usually have 7, 11, 15, 17, 21, or 23 jewels.

Hunt case pocket watches with covers that close over the face like a clam shell generally bring more than open face watches.

Watches with 18K or 14K solid gold cases bring a premium based on the gold content in the case. Just make sure the watch has a quality movement to go along with the gold content of the case. Rolled gold cases are next. For those on a budget, high quality movements in coin silver, silveroide, or base metal cases are a good choice.

Railroad grade watches are highly sought out by collectors and appreciate in value each year. These watches were made with great precision. The railroads demanded that theses watches keep time within 30 seconds per week. Perhaps you had a relative that worked for one of America's great railroads who owned one of these fine timepieces.

Wristwatches
Wristwatches became popular after World War I. The major American watch manufacturers during the 20's 30's and 40's were again Elgin, Hamilton and Waltham. Other major players included Bulova, Benrus, Gruen. These watches used mostly Swiss movements.

Early wristwatches were small pocket watches with soldiered wire lugs and a cloth band. Cartier introduced the 'tank' watch with a rectangular design. The other watch makers followed suit and produced beautiful art deco watches with the rectangular design from the 20's through the 50's. These are now popular with both men and women.

As watches evolved, features were added such as self winding or automatic movements, repeaters, alarms, day, date, wind indicators, stop watch features, and moon phase features. These added features are called complications. The more complications the better. Chronographs incorporate many of the features listed above and are very popular. There is an endless variety, of combinations. That's one of the things that makes watch collecting an interesting hobby.

With the advent of the space age, came electric timepieces, including the famous Bulova Accutron. The Accutron, introduced in 1960 was produced until 1976. It included advanced transistorized circuitry and featured an electronic tuning fork. The Accutron kept excellent time and was carried into outer space by our astronauts, and was the first watch on the moon. These watches are becoming very sought after.

For more information we encourage you to visit the NWACC web site to learn more about vintage watches and this fascinating hobby.