Watches & Watch accessories

Though his works are now revered and highly valued in his native land, Edgar Allan Poe spent most of his writing life in debt. There were, however, a few months in the early 1840s when, while working in Philadelphia as an editor and contributor on 'Graham’s Magazine', he enjoyed some short-lived financial success.

Offered with an a/f catalogue caveat, this early 20th century marine chronometer, below, quadrupled expectations at Chichester saleroom Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium).

This 1940s Jaeger-LeCoutre Triple Calendar 273175 Mechanical watch is offered for £4200 at the next Arley Hall Antiques & Fine Art Fair.

Clock produced by Englishman influential in French horology impresses in Norfolk auction.

Did a watch offered for sale in Carlisle at the end of July once belong to Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)? Two centuries of provenance suggest it did.

A cache of military diving watches sold in Hampshire and a £125,000 Daytona spotlight the thriving market for vintage mechanical ‘tool’ watches.

On January 4, 1940, the London subsidiary of the Omega Watch Co received an urgent order from the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company for 2000 watches intended for Royal Air Force crews. Delivery was to be made by March 10, 1940.

A silver pocket watch by ‘father of British clockmaking’ Thomas Tompion has been literally unearthed in Northumberland.

The 52-lot auction of furniture, paintings and works of art collected by members of the Rothschild family was among the most animated during a packed week of London showpiece sales.

The Watch Sale at Fellows in Birmingham on June 18 includes arare Rolex Oyster Cosmograph Daytona chronograph with ‘reverse panda’ white on black dial.

The chain of artistic influences that led to the decoration of a gold-enamel watch made by John Kenable of Frith Street in London in c.1800 can be traced back to 1766.

The May 11-12 Geneva sale conducted by Phillips in association with watch consultancy Bacs & Russo includes one of the most complicated wristwatches of the pre-war era: the Vacheron Constantin minute repeater with retrograde calendar from 1940.

The ‘Big Red’ Daytona reference 6265 is one of the most desirable Rolex chronographs from the 1980s.

Universal Genève helped change the horological landscape in 1934 with the introduction of an affordable two-button Compur chronograph – a line that continued into the 1940s.

It was during the First World War that the convenience of the wristwatch began to replace the pocketwatch but it really came into its own with the production of bespoke ‘tool’ watches for submariners and airmen later in the century.

Watch collectors priced out of the market for blue-chip branded sports models are finding value for money elsewhere.

Heuer watches, steeped in racing history, are among the ‘secondary’ or ‘niche’ Swiss brands that have entered the mainstream collecting arena in the past decade.

Surprise bid highlights demand for vintage Rolex accessories at auction.