
Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Heuer pocket watch, circa 1950-1960
- Maker / attribution
- Heuer (brand / maker)
- Date
- c. 1950-1960
- Historical period
- Modern Mechanical Horology (1945 – 1969)
- Country of origin
- Switzerland
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Dimensions
- diameter 54 mm. (bezel) mm
- Auction house
- Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva
- Lot
- Lot 341-26
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: LOT 26, Monaco, July 21, 2021
- Catalogue title (original)
- Heuer Dashboard-timer; “Auto-Rallye”; chromium-plated metal (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Antiquorum auction archive, Geneva (lot Lot 341-26), this is a pocket watch by Heuer, made in Switzerland, dated c. 1950-1960. The Atlas places it in the Modern Mechanical Horology period (1945 – 1969) of its Pocket Watches collection. Recorded dimensions: diameter 54 mm. (bezel) mm. The record is illustrated with 2 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
Antiquorum catalogue description
Chromium-plated metal, open-face, keyless-winding, square-shaped, dashboard-timer with two horological complications:• 1/5 chronograph (activated by the two round-shaped push-pieces)• Dragging 60-minute central counter (exterior graduation with central index)
Lot specifications (Antiquorum)
Model: “Auto-Rallye”; Caliber: 1290 C (by Ed. Heuer & Co.); Diameter: 54 mm. (bezel); Dimensions: 57.9 x 57.9 mm.; Signature: dial, case and movement; Accessories: hang tag
Inscriptions & marks
dial, case and movement
Historical context
Modern Mechanical Horology (1945 – 1969)
Tool watches for divers, pilots and astronauts; electric watches anticipate the electronic age.
After 1945 the pocket watch became a niche product — presentation and railway watches, inexpensive pin-lever watches, and commemorative pieces — while most innovation moved to the wrist.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking
Atlas type guide
Timers, stopwatches, chronoscopes and time recorders
Instruments for measuring short intervals or recording when something happened form a large and practical branch of horology. Sports stopwatches and split-seconds timers, laboratory chronoscopes (such as Hipp's, which measured thousandths of a second for psychology and ballistics experiments), metronomes for music, watchmen's clocks that recorded patrol rounds, and the time recorders that clocked factory workers in and out all derive from clock and watch technology.
These objects matter historically because they show timekeeping leaving the observatory and the drawing room and entering industry, science and sport. Many were mass-produced, and their dials, scales and patents chart the rise of electrification and industrial management.
What to look for
- Scales graduated in fifths, tenths or hundredths of a second, or decimal minutes for industrial use.
- Start, stop and reset push-pieces; a second hand that can be stopped independently (split seconds).
- Recording devices: paper discs or tapes, printing mechanisms, keys or punches.
- Patent numbers and dates on the dial or case, which give a terminus post quem.
Dating clues
- Hipp chronoscopes were made from the 1840s into the twentieth century.
- Employee time recorders spread from the 1890s (Bundy, IBM, International Time Recording Co.).
- Quartz and electronic timers replaced mechanical stopwatches in sport from the 1970s.
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.
Read next:Flyback chronograph
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