Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Silver Pair Cased Oddfellows Dial Verge, 1841
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- 1841
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- silver
- Dealer
- WatchMuseum.org shop
- Stock no.
- Product 6197
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, WatchMuseum.org shop (product 6197)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Silver Pair Cased Oddfellows Dial Verge (English)
View the source record (dealer listing) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Catalogued by WatchMuseum.org shop (stock number Product 6197), this is a pocket watch, dated 1841. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: silver. The record is illustrated with 4 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 — WatchMuseum.org shop
This is a beautiful mid-19th-century English verge pocket watch featuring a polychrome enamel dial adorned with the symbols of the Oddfellows Society. The watch is housed in silver pair cases and features a full plate fusee movement with round pillars. The movement also includes a pierced and engraved round cock and a polished steel regulator. The dial is made of white enamel and is intricately painted with two women and various Oddfellows symbols, including the all-seeing eye and the motto “Amicita Amor et Veritas”. Surrounding the scene is the inscription “Independent Order of Odd Fellows Manchester Unity”. The dial also features Roman numerals and gilt hands. The silver pair cases consist of a plain silver inner case with a silver oval pendant and bow, marked with the maker’s mark “JH” in an oval. The outer case is also plain silver, although the maker’s mark has faded with time. Overall, this pocket watch is a stunning example of the craftsmanship of the time and a unique piece of Oddfellows history. Signed Wm Walker Shrewsbury Place of Origin : Hallmarked London Date of Manufacture: 1841 Diameter: 57 mm Depth: 15 mm Condition: Good
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
From 1750 to 1850 the watch became a precision instrument. Mudge's lever escapement, the cylinder escapement, Lépine's thin bar calibre, Breguet's innovations (overcoil, tourbillon, perpétuelle) and the pocket chronometer of Arnold and Earnshaw all date from this period, while verge watches remained common in cheaper production.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Early Modern 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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