Instruments · Deck watch
Waltham British Royal Navy nickel cased lever deck watch, circa 1942
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1942
- Historical period
- Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
- Country of origin
- England
- Object type
- Deck watch
- Materials / technique
- nickel
- Dimensions
- Diameter 52 mm
- Auction house
- Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham
- Lot
- Sale 5, lot 195
- Credit line
- Auction lot record: lot 195, The Watch Auction, Gardiner Houlgate (26th May 2021)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Waltham British Royal Navy nickel cased lever deck watch, circa 1942, signed 16s 9 jewel 3 Pos. adj. temp. movement with gilt compensated balance and regulator, no. 31600362, model 1908, grade 1609, s (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Gardiner Houlgate (auction house), Corsham (lot Sale 5, lot 195), this is a deck watch, made in England, dated c. 1942. The Atlas places it in the Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking period (1900 – 1945) of its Instruments collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: nickel. Recorded dimensions: Diameter 52 mm. The record is illustrated with 1 photograph.
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
Lot description — Gardiner Houlgate
Waltham British Royal Navy nickel cased lever deck watch, circa 1942, signed 16s 9 jewel 3 Pos. adj. temp. movement with gilt compensated balance and regulator, no. 31600362, model 1908, grade 1609, signed black dial with Arabic numerals, minute markers and subsidiary seconds, the case back inscribed 'NON-LUM' and numbered 9018 with Military arrow and issue markings '0552/520-8049', within a Star case, 52mm - ** within a fitted wooden hinged case with viewing aperture
Historical context
Golden Age of Mechanical Watchmaking (1900 – 1945)
The wristwatch displaces the pocket watch; waterproof cases, self-winding and grand complications.
Timing instruments became electrical and specialised: industrial time recorders, sports timers and aviation instruments.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Industrial Revolution
Atlas type guide
Marine chronometers
A marine chronometer is a precision timekeeper carried at sea to find longitude: the navigator compares local noon, observed with a sextant, with the time at a reference meridian kept by the chronometer. Each hour of difference corresponds to fifteen degrees of longitude. John Harrison proved the method in the 1760s; Pierre Le Roy, Ferdinand Berthoud, John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw then developed the detent escapement and the compensation balance that made chronometers practical to manufacture.
By the nineteenth century London, Liverpool, Le Locle and Glashütte supplied navies and merchant fleets. A typical box chronometer has a spring-detent escapement, a fusee to equalise mainspring torque, a bimetallic compensation balance with a helical balance spring, and is mounted in gimbals inside a wooden box so that it stays level.
What to look for
- Gimbals and a three-tier wooden box with a glazed inner lid.
- A power-reserve ('up and down') indicator on the dial, usually showing 56 hours on two-day instruments.
- Spring-detent escapement and a cylindrical (helical) balance spring visible through the movement.
- Admiralty or navy marks (broad arrow), and rating certificates from observatories.
- The maker's number on the dial and movement; many makers' registers survive, allowing dating.
Dating clues
- Earnshaw-type spring-detent chronometers became standard after about 1800.
- Auxiliary compensation devices on the balance appear from the mid-nineteenth century.
- Quartz and radio time signals ended routine use of mechanical chronometers in the 1970s and 1980s.
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:Spring detent (chronometer) escapementFuseeBalance spring (hairspring)Detent escapement
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