Re: Captain John's Chronometer and Barometer


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Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on December 12, 2008 at 17:01:34 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: Captain John's Chronometer and Barometer posted by Adam Quinan on December 12, 2008 at 11:58:28:

I think, with respect, that Adam is mistaken, here.

The Ingersoll and Waterbury companies had been making pocket watches that sold for a dollar (thanks to their use of the pin pallet mechanism) since the 1880s but there was no equivalent wrist watch until Olsen and Lehmkuhl bought Waterbury and renamed it Timex Inc., in 1940. (So far as I know, Fred Olsen still owns Timex.) Since war time production consisted of time fuses, Timex did not produce a cheap wristwatch until after WW2 - when, indeed, it replaced the cheap pocket watch. I am not considering Switzerland and England because neither produced a cheap wristwatch - English watchmaking was in terminal decline by 1920 and the Swiss did not produce a cheap wristwatch until the Swatch.

It is worth remembering that the market for cheap watches was much affected by the Depression. Many people carried on with what they had, or bought a "dollar" pocket watch.


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