: Wow . . . love this "Andretti" Autavia. Yes, he wore
: one of the two register guys!!

: And what can I say about the pocket watch -- the finish on the
: movement is beyond belief!! I wonder -- was there any watch
: coming out of Switzerland that was any better than these
: watches? I know that's a dumb question, but that watch is just a
: killer!!

Jeff

I outlined this story below but here I will flesh it out. Pocket watch people argue over the details but it has been told and written too many times to think there is not a basic core of truth.

Sometime in the lat 1870s or early 1880s the President of Vacheron Constantin was invited to visit the American Watch Company factory at Waltham, MA. At this time Vacheron was beginning to want to penetrate the American watch market as the demand for high quality railroad watches was beginning to grow so the president was only too glad to accept the invitation to the oldest and largest American maker. After a tour of the factory which was operated in a much more modern and mechanized style than its Swiss counterparts they went to the company president's office where the man from Vacheron was presented with one of these 1872 model American Grade watches. (Here is the part that is somewhat disputed....but a great part of the story) As the story goes the president of Waltham says "Let me take your watch to our adjusting room and have it made perfect." The president of Vacheron asks, "Is the watch now adjusted the way it would be to go out into your market?" and after the answer is "yes" he says "I want to have it exactly this way with no special treatment thank you." When he gets the watch back to his factory in Geneva, he hands it to the head of his adjusting room and says "tell me what you think of this American watch and be honest with me...This is the finest of their "machine made" watches." Some time later the head adjuster comes back and tells the president that they could not produce a watch of such precision and accuracy and finish without spending so much manufacturing time that they would lose money on every watch.

Anyway, that's the story and whether it is completely true or not I like it. The bad part about the story is that in the from the late 1920s into the '30s and '40s it was at Waltham that the drive to over mechanize and cheapen the production of watches led to downfall of the American watch industry. Waltham's from the '30s, '40s and '50s get progressively worse in terms of fit and finish. In the US, The Hamilton Watch Company continued to innovate and to make extremely high quality watches into the '60s but as wrist watches took over the watch industry in the US failed to keep up with the Swiss. In the end nobody wanted pocket watches and the last Hamiltons, Elgins, and Walthams were Swiss made wrist watches with the factory name on them.

JohnCote