Wristwatches · Wristwatch
Tiffany & Co. Cocktail Watch, 1940
- Maker / attribution
- Tiffany & Co. (maker)
- Date
- 1940
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Wristwatch
- Dimensions
- Case 18 mm
- Stock no.
- 40990848
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Analog/Shift (40990848)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Tiffany & Co. Cocktail Watch (English)
View the source record (dealer listing) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction
Record summary
Catalogued by Analog/Shift (dealer), New York (stock number 40990848), this is a wristwatch by Tiffany & Co., dated 1940. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Wristwatches collection. Recorded dimensions: Case 18 mm. 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 — Analog/Shift
From the 1920s through the 1960s, small ladies’ ‘cocktail’ watches were all the rage. These timepieces — thin, and often in precious metals with matching bracelets — were unobtrusive and elegant, with diminutive dials and mechanical movements whose small size is notable even today. (The famed Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 101 is still the world’s smallest mechanical movement, and has held this distinction since 1929.) Though no longer widely produced, this type of ladies’ timepiece remains the perfect accessory to a cocktail dress or evening gown. This particular cocktail watch from circa the late 1930s was retailed by none other than famed American jeweler Tiffany & Co. Housed in an 18mm, round platinum case with an acrylic crystal, and a diamond-encrusted bezel, it features a patinated, white dial with painted black Art Deco-style ‘Arabic’ indices, an outer ‘railroad’ minute track, and a blued steel ‘kite’ handset. Powered by a hand-wound Caliber 911 movement from Hamilton Watch Co, it comes paired to a black cord strap with a platinum safety clasp, and features a caseback engraving dating to 1940. Light, diminutive, and beautiful, it’s the perfect accompaniment to a formal evening on the town. Try it on for size!
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
The wristwatch overtook the pocket watch. Military use in the First World War, aviation, water-resistant cases (1926), automatic winding (1923–31), rectangular Art Deco designs and early chronographs and calendars defined the period.
Read the period in the timelineMore wristwatches from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Wristwatches
Bracelet watches were worn by women from the early nineteenth century — Breguet made one for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in 1810–12 — but the wristwatch only became a man's instrument with military use and aviation in the early twentieth century. Between the World Wars it overtook the pocket watch; the 1920s and 1930s brought rectangular Art Deco cases, water-resistant cases and the first automatic winding systems.
After 1945 the wristwatch became a carrier of identity — dress watches, sports and dive watches, chronographs, calendars — produced by Swiss, American, Japanese, German, Soviet and Chinese industries. The quartz revolution after 1969 and the mechanical renaissance since the 1990s, including the rise of independent watchmakers, complete the story.
What to look for
- The reference number (between the lugs or inside the case back) and serial number, the starting point for dating.
- The calibre: its maker and number are often stamped under the dial or on the bridge.
- Originality of dial, hands and crown — refinished ('redial') dials are common.
- Case material marks: 18K/750, 14K/585, stainless steel, gold-filled, plated.
Dating clues
- Wire-lug cases: before c. 1925.
- Water-resistant screw-down cases: from 1926.
- Quartz movements: from 1969; sapphire crystals widespread after c. 1980.
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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