: And as for the question, some of the pocket watch makers you
: mention also make wristwatches - do you separate the two
: mentally, or do, say, Hamilton wristwatches appeal as well as
: the pocket ones?

Mark,

This is a great question. First let me say that for years, as a collector, I was almost vehemently against the whole institution of wrist watches. At the same time I was focused almost entirely on American pocket watch production and excluded anything European from consideration. Although I knew that there were fine European pocket watches my interest was in why the American watch industry developed differently. I was interested in mass production and the objective of producing a watch who's quality would rival that of Patek or Vacheron but which would be produced in a much more efficient and cost effective manor. I was interested in the machines developed by the large American watch companies which turned out precision made screws and plates and wheels efficiently and by the thousands. The heyday of this American watch revolution was from about the late 1850s to perhaps the production of the Hamilton watches with Elinvar hairsprings in the 1930s. After this the quality of American watches declined. Quite frankly my collection focuses on the earlier high grade watches. By the time the American companies began producing wrist watches they were pretty much on the decline for me and, with few exceptions, they used pretty pedestrian movements. I like elegant machines. I guess I do have a soft spot in my heart for the Art Deco wrist watches made by the Illinois watch company and the style if not the mechanics of the dead end Hamilton electrics.

Over the course of my collecting life I have met fellow collectors who have educated me and shed a new light on things for me. The first thing I opened my eyes to were complicated European pocket watches. That led to a an interest in complicated European wrist watches. In fact, I can remember the first time I was really smitten by a wrist watch. It was in 1991 or 1992 in one of the best watch shops in the USA (in my opinion) in a suburb of St Louis, Missouri. The Russian Gent who owned the place, who has since become a great friend of mine, showed me a Ulysse Nardin Astrolabium Galileo Galilei. The watch was so far out of my price range at the time but I wanted it so badly I probably lost sleep over it. I caught the bug from this Nardin but I spent a lot of time drooling and learning before I started buying.

I got caught up in a big layoff at the company I had worked at for years about 3 years ago. I have had a traveling job for years and had built up a pretty big network of pocket watch contacts in the jewelry and watch business in my travels. I decided that instead of looking for a job I would try to make my living being a free lance photographer and a watch dealer. I knew a local guy who is a pretty big Rolex dealer and he taught me enough about Rolex so that I could start buying Rolex from my pocket watch connections. Along with Rolex I just started looking for and buying any of the high end modern and slightly vintage wrist watches. I have to like something to be able to make myself buy it and sell it and I really go to like modern high end watches. This was all going along surprisingly well for about a year when an old boss of mine called me up and offered me a job that looked too good to refuse. Now I have been employed again for almost two years and have very little time for beating the bushes for watches and I only get out the cameras for the races at IMS. The good thing is that I still travel a lot and some of my old contacts still think of me when the get a watch or two.

I am truly a lucky guy!

JohnCote