History of steel watches

The industry of laminated iron was one of the great adventures of the 19th century. Produced in large quantities as of 1845, the material was used in railways, bridges, towers, and innovative buildings. The fashion spread to all walks of life, and not the least horology! The exceptional collection shown in this book was assembled by Jean Aubé. For over 20 years, this patient and knowledgeable collector sought out and acquired more than 220 watches, each with its own particular fascination and character. The illustrations in sepia are not part of the collection; they represent watches of historical or stylistic importance. MONTRES JOURNE S.A. is privileged to be the guardian of this collection, and has chosen to devote a book to it, written by today's most notable experts. Their lively study shows how these watches, though they share the common denominator of gunmetal cases, in fact demonstrate a wide variety of styles and techniques that pre-figure the wristwatch. The authors describe the techniques employed in the creation of these “everyman's” watches, tracing some of their history as far back as the 17th century. They paint a captivating picture of a new type of watch that was both egali-tarian and -- fun! Rarely has such playfulness been seen in horology, and almost ne-ver in the field of “high quality” watches. Steel has generally been employed in horology for its low cost. I take this occasion to present the only F. P. JOURNE watch with a steel case. This watch, paradoxically the most expensive of my collection, is a technically demanding 'Grande Sonnerie'. Five years were required for its development and its innovations resulted in no fewer than ten patents. This exceptional watch is housed in a steel case, simply because steel - which unlike platinum is crystalline in structure - is a better conductor of sound, and the case, in order to be watertight, can have no openings. Steel is thus used for its physical and mechanical qualities. Like all F. P. JOURNE watches, the movement's plate and bridges are made exclusively of 18 carat pink gold. The watches revealed in this book are part of a common heritage. Rather than kee-ping them hidden, I have chosen to show them to the public. It is my modest hope that those who are inspired by them for their future creations will give to Caesar what belongs to him.

 François-Paul JOURNE

The Origins of Gunmetal Watches

During the second half of the 19th century, profound changes occurred in the production and commercialisation of watches. A combination of a great many factors - scientific, economic, political, technological, industrial and commercial - gave rise to the development of regulators.

Until the mid 19th century, only three types of watches were produced: expensive or luxury watches, watches for scientific or professional use, and ordinary watches.

Expensive watches, whether they were made of elaborately chased precious metals, embellished with enamel decoration, set with precious stones, or fitted with a precision movement or a movement with many complications, were usually produced for an elite clientele in very small series - and often as one-of-a-kind pieces - by jeweller-craftsmen or highly skilled watchmakers. They often served as princely gifts presented to important people during official visits, when political treaties were signed or when commercial agreements were reached. These exceptional watches were often destined for exportation to China and India, or for the Islamic market.

Ordinary watches were generally produced in large centres such as Paris, London or Geneva, by établisseurs who designed them but outsourced the production of most of their components, themselves doing only the assembly, finishing, and adjustment. Generally made of silver, the most common type were those made in the Swiss or French High Jura by a little-trained corps of workers consisting mostly of farmers who were obliged to seek other employment during eight months of the year. Whole families worked together in one-room farmhouses, executing repetitive tasks that required only a few rudimentary tools. The pieces they produced were sent to large centres such as Neuchâtel or Geneva, where they were assembled and finished.

Production was organised in this manner throughout the 18th century, though it never resulted in a true democratisation of the market, for the watches remained relatively expensive. Generally, a watch was jealously guarded by its owner throughout his or her lifetime and was then handed down to a descendant as one of the owner's most prized possessions.

Towards 1890, the simplest and the least expensive watches, of a quality that was called 'bon courant' (literally 'good ordinary'), featured key winding and a cylinder escapement. Fitted in white metal cases that looked like silver (silvered metal, nickel, argentan, etc.), they sold for between 8 and 20 francs.

The same movements, but gilt and more carefully finished, were placed in silver cases (with the legal standard of 0.800); these sold for more than double the price of the others. When fitted in gold cases, with no difference in precision or finishing, their prices could go as high as 150 to 300 francs, depending on the weight of the case.

A gold pocket watch with a case weighing approximately 30 grammes and a movement identical to that of a silver watch (which sold for 40 francs), was priced at 250 francs. Thus, the added value per gramme of gold was approximately 7 francs, or 7,000 francs per kilo. Pure gold sold for 3.2 francs the gramme, or 3,200 francs the kilogramme. To these prices were added the guarantee fees collected for hallmarking.

During the 19th century, cylinder watches progressively took the place of the sturdy watches with verge escapements that had been produced for over two centuries and were still offered for sale around 1860. Generally silver, these watches were destined for a rural clientele. In 1860 they sold for approximately 30 to 50 francs, depending on their size.

The first true horological manufactory was founded by Frédéric Japy in 1777 at Beaucourt (in the Territoire de Belfort); there 50 workmen created watch ebauches, using specialised tools invented by Japy. By 1801, he employed 300 workmen and produced 100,000 ebauches per year. In 1805 he registered patents for a milling machine, a gear-cutting engine, a screw-head tool, and a wheel-cutting engine. From then on, all the necessary conditions for true industrial production were in existence. This finally happened when in 1807 Japy entered into an association with his three sons, Fritz, Louis and Pierre. In 1819, a new factory opened for the production of blanks and mouvements de Paris, of which, at the time of the 1851 Universal Exhibition in London, the firm sold 60,000 pieces per year, while they sold 500,000 watch ebauches every year. The next step was taken in 1855, thanks to Pierre Frédéric Ingold's invention of the wheel-cutting engine. Georges Frédéric Roskopf was the creator of the first true proletarian watch (1868), for which the methods of production had to be revolutionised. Similarly, with the widespread adoption of Adrien Philippe's 1844 improvements to keyless winding, and with his 1845 invention of the sliding pinion winding mechanism for time-setting, the conception and shapes of cases, as well as the methods used for case-making, had to be revised.

The working conditions for artisans and workmen evolved rapidly over the second half of the 19th century. The advent of liberal capitalism, the growth of industry, the free circulation of capital, the growing interdependence of monetary and banking systems, and the tremendous increase in the volume of commercial exchanges, all contributed to the extension and to the international nature of economic crises. These crises followed one other with almost no interruption, until Black Thursday - October 24, 1929 - the day that marked the beginning of the Great Depression.

Attempts were made to regulate production by legislation, in order to maintain sufficient quality. Unions developed, both for the defence of workers' interests and those of employers. To insure the training of students, several professional horological schools were opened.

Over a period of about fifteen years, the competition between the two types of production then in vigour - on the one hand, the traditional établissage as practiced by isolated craftsmen, then in regression, and the factories and manufactories, in rapid development at the time - resulted in salaries dropping by over 50%. Heads of households no longer earned enough to meet their families' needs.

In the European countries that were the principal producers (France, Switzerland, Great Britain), the crises in the horological industry due to the changes in production methods were very severe. They profoundly upset the equilibrium of habits that had been entrenched for generations, in a sector that was naturally conservative.

Such was the situation when gunmetal watches were introduced onto the market. Their production grew out of a combination of many different social, economic, and technical factors.

The advent of the industrial era at the end of the 19th century radically changed both working conditions and production techniques. Its consequences for horology were spectacular, and particularly as concerns the watch market, where prices became considerably 'democratic'. While high-quality watches, reserved for the aristocracy and certain members of the middle class, were always made in very small series by an elite group of workmen, the stringent working hours imposed by factory schedules and the development of the railroad made watches necessary objects for most of the population. With the war of 1870 and the colonial campaigns of the period just before the First World War of 1914-1918, it became imperative that soldiers be equipped with watches that were purely utilitarian, sturdy and trustworthy, and which could be made in very large series at a low cost.

Thus gunmetal watches developed shortly after the war of 1870, and their production constantly grew thereafter. One of the reasons for this was the extremely high cost of gold watches, due to the substantial taxes levied on precious metals by the government. As an example, in 1907, a gold watch weighing 30 grammes was sold by Venot Frères et Cie. for the price of 320 francs, while the same watch in steel or nickel was worth only 42 francs.

In addition, the reigning climate was highly protectionist. Customs regulations and laws against smuggling led to stringent postal regulations forbidding the shipment of valuable objects, thus considerably hindering the commerce of watches made of precious metals. Those watches whose cases were in other metals could circulate freely and were not subject to taxation.

The fact that the use of the watch had become generalised to all classes of society, and the existence of other favourable conditions, led to the industrial production of the 'proletarian watch' as early as 1868. This production was also greatly encouraged by the growth of the French metal industry, which resulted in the development of new methods of production and treatment of steel.

Industrial techniques had made it possible to greatly lower production costs, as compared with cases in precious metals, which were virtually entirely hand-made. The result was a considerable price difference between steel watchcases and those in gold. Little by little, horological manufactories with specialised tools and machinery began to take the place of independent craftsmen working at home. This encouraged the production of watch movements in large quantities - by a work force that was growing less and less skilled - and therefore at a greatly reduced cost.

At the same time, the invention of keyless winding and its coming into general use due to the improvements of Adrien Philippe (1844), and the important progress made in the production of movements thanks to the work of Pierre Frédéric Ingold (1855) and Georges Frédéric Roskopf (1868), made it necessary to completely modify the process of watch case production.

The use of argentan and other white metals - alloys of iron, nickel, copper, or zinc, made it possible to greatly reduce costs and production times as compared with cases in precious metals, which were almost entirely hand-made. While the new metals offered the advantage of being easily fashioned and extremely rust-resistant, they were also relatively fragile, malleable, and subject to wear and denting.

The advent of heavy equipment driven by hydraulic power, steam, or electricity, such as cutting presses and stamping and embossing machines, allowed the production of gunmetal cases.

Gunmetal, as it is improperly called in England, was originally a type of bronze that had long been used by gunsmiths for pistols and rifle barrels. Hunters and military men in particular appreciated it for its sturdiness and its resistance to wear and all types of corrosion during common usage. It was necessary, however, for certain processes to be perfected before the material could be widely used for the making of watchcases by means of new industrial fashioning techniques. The treatment involved chemically treating the steel with a gas or a liquid so that its surface is transformed into an inalterable ferrous oxide that is black in colour.

Their relatively low production cost was just one of the advantages of gunmetal watches. The disadvantage was that their machine finishing required production methods closer to those of industry than of craftsmanship. The result was a certain standardisation of products with little room for whimsy or imagination as concerned case shape or decoration, generally limited to a few added gilt metal ornaments. Thus the first consequence of the use of gunmetal was the production of a wide variety of watches that were distinguishable only by their technical characteristics and type of time display, as well as by their dials, whose different varieties of decoration allowed the development of models intended for different sorts of clients and various socio-professional categories. This had the added consequence of encouraging the development of new sales techniques.

This was the case for the large watches improperly called regulators, of which the majority were intended primarily for the employees of the rapidly expanding railroad network. They were sold by travelling salesmen who generally advanced the argument that due the profession required a precision watch (thus the name 'regulator'). Once a watch had been successfully sold to a stationmaster, most of his subordinates would want to buy a similar one.

Though they were often mediocre in quality, these watches were sturdy thanks to their large dimensions (24 lines, or approximately 55 mm in diameter), and they indeed ran quite well. Numerous models existed. The cases, sometimes plain, were also often adorned with two gilt metal bands applied to the bezel and to the edge of the case back. Depending on the price, the dials could be of white enamel, simply marked with the word 'regulator', or embellished with numbers painted on round cartouches of flinqué enamel, of various colours. They often depicted a locomotive. The success of these watches was so great that a great number of regulators were produced in Franche Comté for various types of clientele.

However, the necessity of constantly lowering production costs for all watches resulted in overproduction, which in turn led to an unprecedented succession of crises affecting the entire horological industry from 1875 onwards.

Watchmakers were obliged to make any and all compromises in order to survive. These ranged from the production of very low quality goods to sales techniques that were sometimes questionable; from time to time watchmakers even resorted to counterfeiting and outright copying. All was fair in commercial war, and everything was attempted.

Of all the effects of excessive production, very low quality watches are an economic phenomenon unto themselves.

The massive importation of American watches produced in modern factories, as well as the tremendous reduction in quality of certain types of European merchandise, led to the market's becoming saturated with low-cost, low-quality watches.

Compete with American watches

These rudimentary products were destined to compete with American watches, and in particular with those of Waterbury, whose movements were made in the same manner as those of alarm clocks, with an embossed duplex escapement. Their dials were made of printed metal, sometimes even of paper, and they were generally fitted with an inexpensive movement derived from the 'Roskopf' one, but more poorly finished. They sometimes still featured a mediocre quality cylinder escapement, which had become out-of-date since the widespread use of the lever escapement.

They were made of common metal to reduce their production costs as much as possible, and also in order to avoid certain customs requirements, as well as the taxes imposed by the garantie and the law of 19 brumaire year VI, Article 74, concerning the commerce and sale of jewellery. Their price ranged from 2 to 3 francs! This 'parasite' production considerably harmed the entire horological industry of the end of the 19th century, especially in the case of watches that were similar in appearance, but were in fact of better quality.

These low-quality products were sometimes given as prizes, particularly by newspapers, or were sold outside the regular distribution circuits by people posing as sailors, soldiers, agents, low-level civil servants, innkeepers, peddlers, and other charlatans. They were a source of great annoyance to watchmakers, to whom they were often brought for repairs or adjustments that often turned out to be impossible due to defects in their construction.

Many uninformed clients who had been cheated in this way became disappointed, scornful, and distrustful of the entire horological profession.

A text by Victor Garrel, published in June 1885 in the N° 1 of 'L'UNION HORLOGERE' of Besançon (Scientific, Practical, Industrial and Commercial Review. The Tribune of Clockmakers, Jewellers, Goldsmiths & Opticians) gives an account that sheds light not only on these low quality watches, but also on the economic situation of the period.

The period from 1870 until the advent of the wristwatch shortly after the First World War (1914-1918) was a particularly creative one. Many patents were registered. These concerned time displays, special types of decoration, mechanisms and technical characteristics - some of which now seem ridiculous and others that went on to inspire the development of most watches on today's market. Certain of these watches, of extremely high quality, were made by students of watchmaking schools, and were presented at chronometry competitions. Others were specially made by ingenious independent watchmakers who were registering a patent, and could not afford case their invention in precious metal.

' Steel Time ', 310 pages, edited by François-Paul Journe