As some of you know, I am collecting pocketwatches, IWC only.
Far from saying that my collection is a museum collection but I am proud to
have found some nice and rare pieces over time.
Some of the pocketwatches are common, easy to find on the market, sometimes in
better condition than mine, but some I have are gems.
So in these crazy times, as the museum in Schaffhausen is closed, why not open
one here on the forum.
As long as the museum is closed, I will post here daily a pocketwatch from my
collection.
I hope I don't run out of pieces before the virus is beaten. Fingers crossed
for all of us.
I will post them in a random order, with some comments, feel free to join.
Keep safe all.
DAY 6 :
Whenever you buy a vintage watch, you do not only buy a fantastic piece of
engineering and craftsmanship, you also buy a bit of history.
Who bought the watch new ? Why ? A special occasion, graduation ? marriage ?
Most of the time, it is fun speculating, but sometimes we know because the
watch itself tells us.
Here is my cal 34, Elgin I caliber with serial number 120 in a 18K gold case.
The cal 34 was made from 1886 to 1887 in very limited numbers ( total
estimated production of 130 ).
In the archives you can read this story that there are less than 10 still to
excist.
forum.iwc.com/t/an-extraordinarily-rare-pocket- watch/2661/#post-207103
The production dates come from data in the Tolke & King book. But in the post
was stated that it could be earlier ( 1884 ).
Since the records from that era are missing, we are not sure.
To return to the beginning of my post, on the inner case lid, we can read the
following text in Dutch.
"Ereprijs door den Minister van Oorlog toegekend aan den Sergeant N.H. Van
Roggen, leerling van den Hoofdcursus October 1895"
So Sergeant N.H. Roggen was awarded a special price for his results at the
academy in October 1895, a reward from the Minister of War.
To get such a nice golden pocketwatch, it must have been a special student. He
made it to Captain ( or higher ? ) but here is a picture of him as Captain.
