Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Britannia Silver English Turkish Market Verge, 1702
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1702 (hallmarked London)
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- silver
- Stock no.
- A1304
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Pieces of Time (A1304)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Britannia Silver English Turkish Market Verge (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Pieces of Time (dealer), London (stock number A1304), this is a pocket watch, dated 1702 (hallmarked London). The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: silver. The record is illustrated with 6 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — Pieces of Time
An interesting early 18 th Century English mock pendulum verge in a silver case with Britannia marks made for the Turkish market. Deep full plate fire gilt movement with Egyptian pillars, two having galleries above. Fusee and chain with worm and wheel barrel setup between the plates. Winged cock with decoratively engraved table, glazed semi-circular aperture which reveals the oscillating bob on one arm of the steel balance, pierced and engraved foot. Pierced and engraved gilt plate for the silver regulator disc marked with Turkish numerals. White enamel dial with Turkish numerals, blue steel hands. Plain Britannia silver inner case, split bezel, silver pendant and ring bow. Maker’s mark "BO" and number corresponding to that on the movement. Decorative symbolic outer case with restored covering to the metal body. Silver bezels and trapped case button, scratched numbered to the left of the pendant opening. Ottoman Islamic Decoration, silver and gold pin work representing crescents and other Ottoman motifs.
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
The balance spring (c. 1675) improved watches dramatically and introduced the minute hand. English pair-cased verge watches with pierced balance cocks and French oignons were typical; enamel painting at Blois and Geneva, and the repeating watch (1680s), made watches objects of great refinement.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
Atlas type guide
Verge and pair-cased watches
After Christiaan Huygens and Robert Hooke applied the balance spring around 1675, the verge watch became a reasonably reliable timekeeper and the minute hand became standard. Through the eighteenth century the typical English watch was a pair-cased verge: a fusee movement with a pierced, engraved balance cock, housed in an inner case and a separate protective outer case, often of repoussé gold, shagreen, tortoiseshell or enamel.
French watches of the same period were thicker 'oignons', later replaced by elegant thinner watches following Jean-Antoine Lépine's bar-bridge calibre of c. 1770. Dutch, Swiss and German makers supplied international markets, and verge watches were made until the mid-nineteenth century as cheaper alternatives to the cylinder and lever.
What to look for
- The pierced balance cock on the backplate: winged (continental) or with a foot (English); its style dates the watch.
- Fusee and chain visible through the movement; key winding through the dial (early) or case back.
- Hallmarks inside English silver or gold cases, which give a date letter.
- Maker's name and serial number engraved on the backplate; watch papers inside outer cases.
- Enamel dials (after c. 1720) versus earlier champlevé metal dials.
Dating clues
- Champlevé dials: c. 1680–1730; white enamel dials thereafter.
- English case hallmarks give the year of assay to within a year.
- Verge watches persisted in cheap production until c. 1850.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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