There are several variants of Ball watches with Brotherhood plugs and matching dials, some colored and some with black-only signatures. They are coveted among collectors and usually do well at auction.

One of the best two-tone full-plate patterns is the Model 6 Bunn Special from Illinois, IMO. There are several variants, and the gilding ring came in yellow or rose gold but the gilding seemed to be especially thin, sinc…

Elgin’s 16-size Model 1 was known as the Convertible because of the moveable winding pinion that allowed it to function as either open-face or hunter. Several grades had higher jewel counts and clip-on dials, which was u…

Very early surviving examples are rare and the smaller the numbers get, the more exciting they are to work on. A new customer from Rockford, Illinois sent in this two-digit Rockford Model 1, serial number 80.

The story of William Dudley is a fascinating one, a marvelous tribute to the creative energies of a man who decided to go solo by starting his own watch company just before his 70th birthday.

The Osaka Watch Co was the final chapter in the Otay/San Jose/Osaka trilogy. After the failure of the first two ventures in California, the watch-making machinery originally purchased from American Tool was sold to the O…

Pocket watches were designed and built during the glorious age of dedicated, purpose-built tooling, meaning that they did one thing and they did it very well. 12-in-1 multi-tools sold on infomercials were thankfully stil…

Rockford saved some of their most interesting patterns for private labels and had a particular fondness for the square-on-round damaskeening, the only factory to do it in quantity. Their Model 6 was the predecessor to th…

Waltham was one of only three companies to make 18-size wind-indicators. While Elgin and Rockford indicator hands simply coast to a stop in a circular seconds bit, Waltham’s Model 92 version limited the hand to a travel …

As collectors, we love unusual variants, like this 18-size Seth Thomas Century fronting a traffic-stopping green guilloche dial with gold numerals, and the unusual thing is that both are unmarked. It’s very common for Mo…