Silver
Found in my tool box many years ago. Worked in houses with children playing in area. Must have been put in. Worked for several people a day. Too many to trace. Have had it for 20 years or more. Came across it recently
Hello Frank,
Thank you for sending in this little pocket watch to mearto.com for an appraisal. It turn out I do not need further photos as i was able to find a similar watch online.
TITLE:
Gent's/ladies, silver, self winding, quartz, pendant wound and set, savonette, hunting case pocket watch, 'Portfolio' model. made for Tiffany & Company, New York City, circa 1970-1990.
Case: 23-25 mm in diameter this is a four leaf, silver, hunting case pocket/pendant watch with a fluted suppressed ball pendant and round bow located at three position on the dial(savonette) opposite the case hinge. The interior of the cover is embossed Tiffany & Co. Swiss made while the outer cover has a three letter monogram, 'TWH'.
Dial: White enameled dial with radial Roman hours, open bar minute track with ARabic markers placed every five minutes around the minute track. There is no subsidiary seconds dial nor sweep seconds. There are brightly black enameled spade hands and the upper dial is marked, 'Tiffany & Co' while the base is marked 'Swiss Made'.
Movement: Not shown but is thought to be a Swiss made quartz movement.
Condition:
Case - In very good condition.
Dial - Excellent
Movement - Not evaluated but assumed original to this case and functioning.
COMPARABLES:
~https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/66333008_tiffany-and-co-triple-signed-sterling-silver-hunter-case (Sold in 2018 for $120.)
~https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-TIFFANY-CO-PORTFOLIO-POCKET-WATCH-GOLD-FILLED-CHAIN-QUARTZ-MOVEMENT/233776469287?hash=item366e29d527:g:eP8AAOSw~xBfqvKH (A
GOLD PLATED VERSION OF THIS WATCH SOLD FOR $80 GARNERING 30 BIDS.)
~https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tiffany-amp-Co-Gun-Metal-Pocket-Watch-signed-movement-and-case-matching-serials-/143911675297?hash=item2181cde5a1%3Ag%3AO2sAAOSwDlFf98Yq&nma=true&si=g09In2EKkTgk0i4RGsv4xLNnYLs%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 (This example finished by Tiffany held a Longines mechanical movement and sold for $75)
HISTORY:
TIFFANY & CO
In 1837, in a time when New York City saw dynamic growth, extravagant taste and golden opportunities, twenty-five-year-old Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young opened a “stationery and fancy goods” store with a $1,000 advance from Tiffany’s father. On their way to the new emporium at 259 Broadway, fashionable ladies in silks, satins and beribboned bonnets faced a gauntlet of narrow streets teeming with horses and carriages and the hurly-burly of city life. At Tiffany & Co. they discovered a newly emerging “American style” that departed from the European design aesthetic rooted in religious and ceremonial patterns. The young entrepreneurs were inspired by the natural world, which they interpreted in exquisite patterns of simplicity, harmony and clarity. These became the hallmarks of Tiffany design, first in silver hollow-ware and flatware, and later in jewellery. This singular style quickly established Tiffany & Co. as the arbiter of taste, elegance and sophistication, which it still is today.The Tiffany & Co. silver studio, where apprentices were encouraged to observe and sketch nature, was the first American school of design. Tiffany first achieved international recognition at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867, when, for the first time, an American design house was awarded the grand prize for silver craftsmanship. By 1870 Tiffany & Co. had become America’s premier purveyor of jewels and timepieces as well as luxury table, personal, and household accessories, with customers including prominent figures such as President Lincoln. At the turn of the century the company had more than one thousand employees and branches in London, Paris, and Geneva. Tiffany opened their own factory for making watches in 1872, but this was a short lived effort and they closed in 1876. The operation of that Tiffany factory was taken over by Patek Philippe in 1879. In 1882 President Chester Arthur invited Louis Comfort Tiffany, the son of the founder, to redecorate the White House and by 1900 the younger Tiffany was a recognized world leader in the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements. In 1902 he became Tiffany’s first director of design. Tiffany designs captured the spirit of the times from the extravagance of the 1920s to the modernism of the 1930s and the aerodynamic age of the 1940s and 1950s. A unique partnership in retailing was celebrated in recent times by Patek Philippe, one of the world's premiere watchmakers, and by Tiffany & Co., one of the world's leading luxury goods retailers. That business relationship began with a handshake agreement in 1851 between company founders Antoine Norbert de Patek and Charles Lewis Tiffany.
PRICING:
In a silver case and in such good condition I would expect this little Swiss watch made for Tiffany & Co to have a fair market value in the $100-$125 range, with retail prices about twice that.
Thank you for choosing mearto.com for your appraisal. That was a good find. Keep looking.
My best,
David
Dear Frank,
Thank you for contacting Mearto with your appraisal inquiry. So that I may best assist you, can you please upload an image of the inside of the cover so that I can see the markings clearly? Other than the Tiffany and Swiss Made markings I cannot see the rest of the writing clearly.
It would be great if you could open the cover over the movement and show me the movement.
Thanks,
David