Unlike horse-drawn carriages, these vestiges of the past work just as well in the modern world, and are a bargain
WORDS MARK McARTHUR-CHRISTIE
THERE ARE ALL sorts of vestigial things around us. Radiator grilles on electric cars, pelvic bones in snakes, public telephone kiosks – and that little pocket on the front of your jeans. What do you do with it? Fill it with change? Keys (never works, they always snag)? Your AirPods? It may be vestigial today but that pocket used to have a very deliberate function: it was designed to hold your watch.
Wristwatches are a distinctly modern innovation, particularly for men. Women wore wristlet watches as jewellery, so it simply wasn’t done for a chap to sport a watch on his wrist. Men carried their watch in their waistcoat pocket or, if they were agricultural workers in the US, the watch pocket on their jeans. Ideally positioned close to a belt loop, should one want to fasten it with a chain or a piece of cord, your watch pocket kept your watch safe from scratches and knocks.
The First World War changed all that and much else besides. The last thing you needed to do in a muddy trench or lying in a shell crater was fish about for a pocketwatch. Not only that, but unless you were fortunate enough to have a hunter or half hunter, the chances of your watch keeping its crystal intact were slim. Then there was the winding crown and pendant to snag, too. From sheer utility, wristlet – then ‘wrist’ – watches became a thing.
After the war, the association of wristwatches with heroism and military victory made sure they were the very thing for a chap to have. Pocketwatches were out. In just a few years, the pocketwatch that had been the time-telling mode of choice since watches were invented was relegated to grandfather’s sock drawer.
Since this spectacular fall from grace, pocketwatches have been a bit of a niche. While the price of almost any half-decent wristwatch has gone up in the same way the SpaceX Starship didn’t, pocketwatches have remained earthbound. This is patently silly; pocketwatches are a way to pick up some proper horological beauties for a fraction of their wristborne relatives’ prices. In fact, you can have a whole selection of pocketwatches from some of the best makers out there for the cost of one wristwatch.
Acquiring a Patek Philippe minute repeater, with its chimes for hours, quarters and minutes, usually requires the signing away of your immortal soul just to get on the waiting list. You will then be required to hand over
