Pocket Watches
Pocket watches represent the full sweep of precision timekeeping history from the sixteenth century forward, and pre-owned examples offer collectors access to some of the most extraordinary movements ever created — complicated mechanisms that, before the wristwatch era, were the pinnacle of what the world's finest craftsmen could achieve. Key categories include Swiss pocket watches from makers including Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, A. Lange & Söhne, and IWC; American railroad-grade pocket watches from Hamilton, Waltham, and Elgin, produced to the demanding specifications of railroad time service regulations; and English fusée pocket watches from London makers of the Georgian and Victorian eras. Complications found in pocket watches — including minute repeaters, grande and petite sonnerie strike mechanisms, perpetual calendars, and tourbillons — often exceed what is practically achievable in a wristwatch movement. The Patek Philippe Graves Supercomplication and Packard pocket watches, both sold at historic auction prices, represent the outer limits of what pocket watch complications could achieve. Pre-owned pocket watches are among the most undervalued mechanical objects relative to their complexity and craft. DeMesy & Co. in Dallas has been evaluating, authenticating, and selling pre-owned pocket watches since 1987, with nearly four decades of expertise informing every acquisition.
