Talk:Waltham Watch Company/Archives/2017

Unitited

I just deleted the incorrect statement that Appleton, Tracy & Company manufactured "598 chronometers." At the time of AT&Co, the term "chronometer" referred to a highly accurate navigational clock with a freesprung detent escapement and a helical hairspring, in addition to a temperature-compensated bimetallic balance. "Pocket chronometers" shared these same technical features. AT&Co never made any such thing. They made a small number, perhaps "598," of something they named a "chronodrometer," which was a crude form of chronograph - not a chronometer, a chronograph - lacking a fly-back feature, and one on which the second hand revolved every four seconds. The time of day was shown inside a small eccentric circle. Advertised as a "sporting watch," it was never very possible.

I had also made an edit to point out that the "Model 1857," so called, was introduced by the Boston Watch Co. prior to 1857. AT&Co called it the "Model 1857" only because that was the year AT&Co was formed. They inherited the design, and much else, from the BWCo. The name, "Model 1857," often misleads novice collectors, so an explanation of the name is useful. This edit, however, like my deletion of the incorrect reference to chronometers, was also undone.

I am a Fellow of the NAWCC who has written a book and numerous research articles on early American watches, so if I make an edit to a wiki in that field it should be respected and not merely undone without explanation. I am not a vandal! Clint Geller (talk) 13:28, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

The international definition of a chronometer is any timepiece that passes a series of official tests. This is not to be confused with the detent chronometer escapement which Waltham never made. The Chronodrometer was a chronograph so has nothing at all to do with the subject in question. --Racklever (talk) 21:37, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

That would be wrong. In 1857-59, the term "chronometer" actually referred to a clock, not a watch at all. In the period when AT&Co was in business, "pocket chronometers" were defined by the specific technical features I described, which, it was presumed, would make them accurate. No lever escapement timepieces were ever referred to as "chronometers" in that period. (Temperature-compensated balances were sometimes referred to as "chronometer balances.") The redefinition of the term as you described only happened MUCH later, after lever watches had supplanted detent escapements at the apex of horology. I had assumed, since AT&Co DID make chronodrometers, and NOT chronometers, that you had simply confused the terms. I was giving your original text at least some credit for having some tenuous connection to actual facts, however incorrect. If this was not the case, then your original text is fairly inexplicable.