Waltham P.S. Bartlett Model 1877 11 Jewel Key Wind Pocket Watch (1878)

About this Waltham P.S. Bartlett Fancy Dial

There is a particular pleasure in a key-wind watch, and this Waltham gives every reason to enjoy it. The movement is a P.S. Bartlett, Model 1877, serial 1,072,493, finished at Waltham, Massachusetts between March and July 1878 in a run of 1,500, of which only a handful are known to survive today. It winds and sets with a key, faced with one of the most charming fancy dials Waltham ever signed, and housed in a hinged open-face coin silver case by Keystone. The dial, movement and case are all an excellent example of early American horology, and together they make a watch that is a delight to hold and to look at. At 148 years old it is in excellent condition throughout, and very few watches from 1878 have survived in this condition.

The movement is an 18-size full plate in gilt brass with 11 ruby jewels, its balance cock and regulator engraved in flowing scrollwork and fastened with blued steel screws. Seven of those jewels sit in the balance and escapement, the parts that work hardest, where the hard ruby bearings reduce friction and wear. The grade honors Patten Sargeant Bartlett, one of the first employees of the Boston Watch Company from which Waltham grew; his name was engraved on early Waltham movements and stayed on the company's watches for decades. Winding is done from the back: open the case back and the key passes through a hole in the inner dust cover onto the winding square of the mainspring barrel. To set the time, open the front bezel and fit the same key onto the square at the center of the hands, which turns them directly. A wonderful example of the art that is American horology.

The dial is the highlight of the watch. A white enamel center with a scalloped edge is framed by a soft cream border, and around the chapter run gilt dots with a gilt crescent between each hour. The Arabic numerals are a deep cobalt blue, and the center is decorated with blue flowers and green grasses beneath the signature "American Waltham Watch Co.," the name the company adopted in 1885. Colored enamel of this kind was made from metal oxides, cobalt for blue and copper or chromium for green, mixed into enamel and fired in layers, one color at a time. Fancy dials like this one became the fashion in the late 1880s and 1890s, and few have kept their color and gilt this well. Blued steel hands complete a dial that makes this a wonderful example of early American horology. Few of these fragile dials have survived the last century and a half and this is a beautifully preserved example.

The case is coin silver, made by the Keystone Watch Case Company of Philadelphia and stamped "Keystone, Coin" inside the back with the company's keystone mark. Coin silver is 900 parts in 1,000 pure silver, the standard of United States coinage from 1837. The name goes back to early American silversmiths, who melted coins as their source of silver; by the time Keystone made this case, coin silver meant that fineness, worked from refined silver. It has a hinged back and front bezel, an inner dust cover with its winding hole, and a ball pendant with a round bow, and every hinge opens and closes as it should. The coin silver has a warm presence in the hand. It has a substantial weight and is a wonderful tactile experience.

1878 was a year of remarkable invention and of silver. On March 11 the Philadelphia Mint struck the first Morgan silver dollar, after Congress passed the Bland-Allison Act over President Rutherford B. Hayes's veto to bring the silver dollar back into circulation. That spring Thomas Edison, who had received his patent for the phonograph in February, demonstrated it for President Hayes at the White House. In June, Eadweard Muybridge set up a row of cameras at Leland Stanford's farm in Palo Alto and photographed a horse in motion, proving that all four hooves leave the ground at once. Two years earlier Waltham had won the first gold medal for watch precision at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, and in 1878 its factory was turning out movements like this one. This Waltham has kept time through all of it, and it is sure to be appreciated for generations to come.

All Vintage Pocket Watches are cleaned, oiled and adjusted for accuracy and warranted for one full year from the date of purchase.