We Buy Watches, any watches, any kind, mens’, womens’, whether in working order or broken. Wrist watches, pocket watches and watchchains, made from Gold, Silver or any other metals including stainless steel. If you have any unwanted or damaged watches we will exchange them for cash, whether well known makes or unknown.
Watches developed through the centuries from portable spring-driven clocks as early as the 15th century. The first wearable time pieces were made in Germany in the 16th century. They were fairly large in size, until watchmakers created miniature pieces. In the 17th century pocket watches came into being, worn attached to chains. There have been various theories as to why these pieces were called “Watches”, one of these being that it came from an old English word “Woecce” meaning Watchman. Town watchmen used the technology to measure their shifts, and 17th century sailors used the mechanisms to time their duty shifts on board ship.
In 1657 the balance spring was developed and added to the balance wheel, thus improving the accuracy of the mechanism. The introduction of the minute hand came into being in Europe around 1680. After this a whole new era in watchmaking began with developments involving the “escapement”, as well as in the manufacturing tools themselves. Watch produced increased, although the assembly and finish were done by hand well into the 19th century.
The British predominated in watch making in the 17th and 18th centuries, although most of their timepieces were expensive and mainly worn by the wealthy. The British Watch Company modernised clock manufacture and improved tools for the industry. More improvements took place in the USA around 1850 using interchangeable parts.
Wrist watches were first introduced in the 16th century. Queen Elizabeth 1st received a wristwatch from Robert Dudley, this being called an “armed” watch. The oldest surviving watch dates back to 1806, a bracelet watch. Wrist watches were generally worn only by women, as men still used pocket watches up until the early 20th century. In 1810 a French maker made a wristwatch for the Queen of Naples, while a Swiss maker, Patek Philippe, made the first Swiss watch for a Hungarian Countess.
The first men to adopt wristwatches were military men around the end of the 19th century. It was important to synchronise operations. Officers began using wristwatches during the First Boer War, 1880-1881, also during the Anglo-Burma War of 1885. Mappin and Webb produced their Campaign watch for soldiers during the campaign in Sudan in 1898, and then again for the Second Boer War of 1889-1902. And in Continental Europe, Girard-Perregaux and other Swiss makers supplied German naval officers with wristwatches in around 1880.
The early wristwatches were really pocket watches fitted with leather straps. By the early 20th century, however, manufacturers began producing purpose-built wristwatches. Cartier produced a wristwatch in 1904 for his friend Santos-Dumont to monitor flights in his airship while having his hands free for the controls. Cartier still markets a Santos-Dumont watch and sunglasses. In 1905 the company Wilsdorf and David began producing quality timepieces at affordable prices. This company became known as Rolex in 1915.
The First World War 1914-1918 shifted the importance of the man’s wristwatch and opened up a mass market in the postwar years. Service watches were introduced with luminous dials and unbreakable glass for use in trench warfare. Almost all enlisted men wore wristwatches and they became generally fashionable.
The first self-winding mechanisms were introduced in 1923, when Glycine’s Eugene Meylan started developing a self-winding system that could be incorporated into almost any watch movement. Glycine began producing automatic watches in 1930. Electric watches were first developed by the Elgin National Watch Company. The first models used a battery as power supply for the balance wheel. Another type of electric watch was pioneered by the Bulova Company using a tuning-fork resonator rather than the balance wheel.
Seiko introduced the first Quartz watches in 1969, and in 1970 Omega produced a revolutionary improvement. Instead of a balance wheel they used a quartz crystal resonator, driven by batteries.
Smart watches have been around since 1994 when Timex introduced a wireless data system that connected from a PC. Since then there have been many types produced, the best known being the Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch and Huawei Watch. Then came hybrid Smart Watches, fusion between a mechanical watch and a Smart Watch.
The Swatch group launched the Sistem 51 Wristwatch, which had 51 parts in all including 19 jewels and a self-winding mechanism.
There have been, all in all, innovative developments in watch making throughout history. The electronic battery watches are of course the norm nowadays, and some solar powered watches have rechargeable batteries. Most displays on the watch face were analogue, however the digital display is also an important innovation.
We look to buy any kind of watch, from pocket watches and chains, to the modern day wristwatch. We buy any make of watch, in any condition, made from any kind of metal, using any kind of mechanism. If you have in your possession an unwanted, forgotten time pieces, from any era, from anywhere in the world, we will exchange these for cash.
You can contact our professional team either by phone or by email, or by any other means, and we can even visit you in your own home if this is practical. You can request one of our Seller envelopes, which are fully insured and tracked with Royal Mail.
