Posted by Peter Ceresole on December 12, 2008 at 19:36:35 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Captain John's Chronometer and Barometer posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on December 12, 2008 at 17:01:34:
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.
I know the perils of quoting Wikipedia as a source, but here is a quote from there in an article about the pin-pallet movement... Starting in 1876 in cheap pocket watches:
'It continued to be used in cheap wristwatches when they gained popularity after World War I.'
Which gets us back to square one.
I've looked, not terribly thoroughly or skilfully, for reproductions of any popular catalogues of the time that might be relevant. Blank, so which shops would have been selling to the sons of naval officers?