Hello Sam,
Thank you for sending in your Tiffany & Company gold pocket watch to mearto for an appraisal. I hope to be of help to you today.
TITLE:
Gent’s 18k gold, double hinged, keyless, manually pendant wound and pendant set, open face pocket watch, made in Switzerland and made for and retailed by Tiffany & Company, New York City, circa first quarter of the 20th century. Accompanied by jeweler’s box marked W.D. Webb, Greenwich, Ct. (established 1897).
DESCRIPTION:
CASE – Size not known but estimated to be approximately 40mm in diameter, this is a polished 18k gold, four leaf, plain unengraved covers. The interior of the covers is marked for “Tiffany & Company, Geneva, 18K”. The other markings scratched into the inner covers are made by repairmen, and they are numerous. There is a full fluted ball gilt pendant (the bow is missing) placed at the twelve. . .
Dial: White enamel dial with black radial Roman hour numerals, outer minute/seconds divisions divided into fifths of a second with red Arabic markers placed every five minutes along the edge of the dial. Sunken subsidiary seconds ring@6. The dial is marked Tiffany & Company, Geneva and the dial has an English-style steel spade hour hand and pointy baton minute hand. . .
Movement: An unsigned, three-quarter plate with single small finger bridge, jeweled (some in gold chatons), straight line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring and index regulator. The movement is signed Tiffany & Co., Geneva with movement no. 13599. (We cannot identify and date a Tiffany watch by its serial number, since it is the serial number of the company in Switzerland that made the movement.) . . .
Condition: Dial – Hairline fracture from the dial center to the five-minute marker, otherwise a very nice well-made dial. CASE – I am surprised by the lack of decoration on the outer case, very unusual to find a plain polished case made for Tiffany. MOVEMENT – This is the shape of movements that are said by many experts to be made by Tiffany in Geneva for tiffany jewelers in New York. Tiffany & Company only made watches in ‘Geneva for two-three years during the mid 1870s, and they certainly would not have used a full fluted ball pendant in those years, nor a three-quarter plate movement. So, my opinion is that Tiffany in NYC requested that some of their movements continue to read ‘Tiffany & Co. Geneva’ and used this as an advertising ploy to sell watches as if they were their own product. . .
This style of watch dates from the first quarter of the 20th century. Patek Philippe took over their Geneva factory and initially supplied movements to Tiffany in NYC. However, by 1900 many different sources of movements made in Switzerland came from multiple companies, some upper end and others less well known.
Therefore, we have a heavy 18k gold pocket watch made for Tiffany & Co by an unidentified Swiss watch firm in a rather plain case with multiple repair dates, non-functional, dial cracked (significant adverse impact on value), and an English style hour hand (just surprising to see). Comparing similar watches sold at auction I believe the fair market value in its current condition ranges between $750 and $900. In very fine condition this watch would sell for $1500-$2000. One must also consider the cost of repair and deduct it from the fair market value since it is unlikely to sell when broken.
I hope I have been of some help to you in understanding what you own. I do not think everyone in the watch world, even today, fully grasps the timing and form of all the variety of movements that bears the Tiffany name.
My best,
David