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The History of the Pocket Watch Pocket watches were the first portable timepiece, predating wrist watches by about 400 years.
Because of their size and innaccuracy, (they slowed down as the coiled spring unwound), these "eggs" were used more as ornaments than timepieces, as they were quite beautiful. In a time before precision machinery, it was a highly skilled craft to create and build accurate timepieces. Local guilds were set up to control clock building and apprenticeships, including the "Paris Guild of Clockmakers" and the "London Clockmakers Company". There is some controversy over who first invented the balance spring, which allowed watches to stay accurate to within a few minutes per day. It was invented around 1670 by Christian Huygens (1625-1695) or Robert Hooke (1635-1703). Perhaps they both came up with the same idea independently? There were heated exchanges between these two characters at the time! The balance spring improved accuracy by creating a stable oscillation of the balance wheel, which allowed the power to be consistently released by the mainspring, and avoiding the slowing towards the end of the wind of the earlier models. Further improvements to accuracy included the machine cutting of wheels, instead of hand cutting, and other refinements.
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![]() - A range of pocket watches including gold plated and skeleton models, plus buy any full price watch and get another one at half price. | |||