Movement of a 1860 Bovet Fleurier Pendant Watch
Welcome to my horology page. My name is Vince. I am a member of the American-Watchmakers Insitute. I was a student of the very last class of the famed City College of San Francisco Watchmaking Program (1997). I have over ten years of experience in watchmaking, and was also an appraiser for auction houses. I personally prefer swiss pocket watches, even though at school we were used to using American pocket watches such as Hamilton and Illinois as instruction models. I was trained via the Bulova method, as my teacher was a graduate of the Bulova watchmaking school. My favorite watch brands are Vacheron & Constantin (1755), Cortebert (1793), and Bovet Fleurier (1822), all very old horological houses. My favorite brand to repair is Patek Philippe (1839), as I consider its superior engineering makes maintainance and repair much more watchmaker friendly. I also have done extensive research on 19th century and early 20th century watches for the Chinese Market, and have personally repaired many of them. You can learn more about Chinese Market Watches by clicking on the photo at the top of the page.
My Cortebert Wristwatch circa 1940
1820 20"' 4J KWKS Cylinder Open Face Silver Pocket Watch. Caliber Lepine (Ebauche). Breguet Hands and Enamel Dial.
1852 15"' 4J KWKS Dent Cylinder Open Face Gold Pocket watch. Caliber Le Coultre (Ebauche). Dent was the
premier watchmaker in Victorian Britain, and was the constructor of the Big Ben. This watch was not made by Dent, but has a swiss movement that was inspected
by the company. The address on the curvette includes the old address at 61 Strand and the new one at 34 Royal Exchange, in London.
1855 15"' 13J KWKS Vacheron & Constantin Hunter Case Gold Pocket Watch. Caliber George Leschot. These interchangable "vacheron" calibers were made
by using the "Pantograph". This watch was
most likely first sold in New York in 1855.
1856 18"' 13J KWKS Czapek Silver Open Face Lever Pocket Watch. After the
dissolution of Patek i Czapek (1839) in 1845, Franciszek Czapek continued
to sell watches under his own name, while his former partner Antoniego
Patka teamed up with Adrien Philippe and formed Patek Philippe. Both companies
initially shared the same clientele of the Polish émigrés community. Unlike Patek Philippe which continues to this day, Czapek closed its doors in
1869.
Pondering the next move
I accept watches for cleaning, maintainance, and repair. I also do appraisal service. My fees are reasonable. I am located in Oakland, California. I also have a small inexpensive pocket watches for sale. Please contact me using my email address shown below.