These early American wristwatch cases began appearing around 1910 and were sold to jewelers and watchmakers. Cases were made of a variety of materials, including nickel or some other type of base metal or sterling silver or even gold. A customer could choose according to how much he or she wanted to spend. You must remember that in those days when you walked into a jewelry store or a watchmaker’s, you purchased a watch in quite a different fashion than you do today. Today we are used to going to a watchmaker or jeweler’s and having the watch ready to go — case and movement. In those days it was different. You went to a watchmaker or jeweler and you selected a movement and dial that were perhaps matched together at the factory, or in some cases you would choose your movement and your dial separately. Then you would go over to another display case and pick out the case.

What customers began to see around that time was these little watchcases

with wire lugs soldered on either end. If they wanted to buy a watch like that they would simply ask the jeweler or watchmaker to insert the movement, hands, and dial into the “wristwatch” case. Most jewelers and watchmakers in those days had the expertise on staff to do the soldering themselves. In those days, finished wristwatches, those that were already cased at the watch factory, were rarely if ever given space in company catalogs.

You must try to understand that in those days a man walking down the street wearing a wristwatch would be comparable to a man walking down the street today in a dress. In those days the wristwatch was considered by most to be a very feminine object. In fact, when I come across a very early wristwatch, I often wonder who the original owner was, especially if there is an interesting inscription on the back. I wish I could go back in time and talk to him. Was he an eccentric? Probably. Ahead of his time? Perhaps. At the very least he was a person who did not run with the pack. In other words, just the type of person that I like.

Figure 3 shows a wristwatch typical of the 1910s, referred to by many as the Riverside Maximus, which  is nothing more or less than a name given to a series of Waltham pocket watches from 12-size down to 0-size. I believe this one is an 0-size and it was designed originally to fit into a hunter case, as you can tell, because the stem is located at the 3 o’clock position. It’s been shown in books as the Riverside Maximus wristwatch. From what I can tell, this is just a Riverside Maximus movement placed into a wristwatch case.

Figure 4 is a Waltham movement that was designed to fit into a small hunter case, but in this case it was placed into a wristwatch case with what we call a demi-hunter cover or a demi-hunter case. If you can see over to the left the case cover has a small hole in it so that the person who is wearing the watch can actually tell the time without having to fully open the cover.

Waltham

The following is a little of the history of each of the five companies mentioned in this article. I’ll start with Waltham because Waltham was the first company to make watches in mass production using a system of  interchangeable parts. Figure 5 shows a portion of the Waltham factory located along the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts.

The company began in 1849 when Aaron Dennison joined with Edward Howard, Samuel Curtis, and Daniel Davis to set up a small shop in Roxbury, Massachusetts, that would eventually become Waltham. The company went under a variety of names over the years and eventually settled on American Waltham Watch Company in 1885 to correspond with the company’s location in Waltham, Massachusetts. It eventually shortened its name to Waltham Watch Company in 1923. It went out of business either in 1955 or 1957, depending on which source you read, and the factory, or at least portions of it, is still standing as far as I know.

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