Pocket Watches

Pocket watches enjoyed enormous popularity throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both as a utilitarian device, as well as a fashion accessory. As wristwatches gained in popularity, pocket watches were seen less and less frequently. With fashion sensibilities making a dramatic u-turn in recent years, three-piece suits, and the accompanying pocket watches are enjoying a strong resurgence. Pocket watches reputedly came into being around 1500, in a much different form as we see them today. Peter Henlein lived in the ancient European town of Nuremberg, probably as a locksmith, as is credited in contemporary writings as being the clever young man to develop a timepiece that would fit in a purse or pocket. The means of winding the watch was developed by Peter and is still used in a more advanced form, with more advanced materials, today. While far different than the technological wonders we use today, the primitive pocket watches invented by Peter Henlein were no less remarkable in their day. As the centuries passed, innovations brought about by the advent of new technologies made pocket watches more reliable and more accurate. By the nineteenth century, pocket watches were in common, every day use, and were being mass produced across the globe. Those same innovations brought about the popular wristwatch which, in time, took the place of the pocket watch. It was more compact, lighter, and equally as accurate. As the nineteen twenties and thirties came and went, the pocket watch became increasingly more rare in every day use. As the last century wore to a close, and a new century spans before us, a resurgence and popularity in all things vintage is growing. Pocket watches are again being seen hanging from elegant chains on the vests of three piece suits.

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