Several months ago I walked into a small country flea market where I have managed to buy quite a few nice average watches over the years. When I arrived, a friend walked up to me and told me that he had just seen a big 18k Swiss pocket watch. I asked him if it was a time only watch and he said yes so I told him I probably wasn't interested. I looked around the market for a while and was about ready to leave when another friend walked up and asked me to take a look at the big 18k Swiss pocket watch. Just for the heck of it I said OK and followed him to where the watch was. When I got there the guy who had the watch handed me a wooden box which piqued my interest. I had seen boxes like this before containing Jules Jurgensen watches. I opened the box and there indeed was a JJ. I opened the back and saw the great 1854 railroad dedication on the cuvette which got me very interested. 1854 is a very early date for a US RR related watch. I opened the cuvette to look at the movement and my hand started shaking. The watch had a tourbillon escapement.

To make a very long story short, the owner of the watch was the son of the guy who had brought it to the flea market. He was fishing for values. Nobody including a couple of watchmakers had noticed the escapement. People had told him that the dedication gave it some value and that JJ was a good name. He had already looked up JJ watches on eBay. It took me a couple of weeks to get him to sell me the watch and although I bought it right I had to step up and pay more than I originally thought I would for it. In the end waving a bunch of cash in his face finally worked.

Since I bought it, I researched the gentleman to whom it was originally dedicated. It turns out that he was a pretty important guy. He was given the watch by the RR he was working for in appreciation for a patent he was awarded which made steam powered locomotives much more efficient. This was one of many patents he was awarded over his career in the RR business. He was also a Commodore in the Union Navy during the American Civil War. I now have pretty much complete biographical info on Mr Gustavus Bartlett Simonds.

Anyway, in my nearly 40 years as a collector and buyer of watches I have found a lot of great watches "out in the wild" but nothing like this one. I know it is just an old pocket watch but I doubt I will ever find/buy a better watch.

Here is a link to a gallery of pictures. The watch has been cleaned since these pictures were taken. It is pretty neat to see the old tourbillon at work.

http://www.johncotephotography.com/Watches/JJ-Tour_3/index.html

Happy New Year

JohnCote