Q I recently became interested in collecting old watches. What is a 'repeater' watch? Is it just a generic term for a pocket watch with a chime?
WHAT THE EXPERT SAYS: Jonathan Darracott, deputy director of Sotheby's watches department in London, sets the scene: 'Imagine you're in the 1600s. You wake up. It's pitch black and you've absolutely no idea what time it is. In the age when electricity was unknown and luminous hands weren't yet invented, it was useful to hear the time, instead of searching in the dark.'
Repeater movement watches mechanically indicate the time by repeating the hours, quarter hours and minutes on demand with a sounding device. 'On older [pocket] watches, it would have been a push piece on the top of the watch that you'd press down. It would have charged the mechanism - that is, wound the spring - and, as you released it, the repeater strikes a low note for the hours, high and low notes for the quarters, and a high note for the minutes.'
Darracott says this mechanism was first used in 1686 by watchmaker Daniel Quare. 'London was the heart and soul of watchmaking until the Dutch started getting in on the act about 1720. Then, the Swiss started faking English watches and got better and better, as England got racked and ruined by war.'
The first repeaters were large and deep, with a bell in the back, says Darracott. 'It didn't have two tones, just speeds. So the quarters would tap out more quickly than the hours. It took about 100 years for them to add minutes to it.' Thomas Mudge's was the first minute repeating watch, appearing about 1750.
Thanks to Abraham-Louis Breguet, repeaters began getting slimmer about 1790. 'He started putting gongs into watches. Gongs are metal rings around the edge that get struck by a hammer,' says Darracott.
The first wristwatch was made for Queen Charlotte by Thomas Mudge in 1760, but 'it wasn't something that anybody deemed useful', he says. 'In the 1900s, Rolex wanted to create a sports watch. If you're being active, you don't want to carry it around in your pocket. However, it was seen as a very effeminate thing for a man to wear, like a bracelet.