English Gold Pocketwatch Cases?

[Robert T. Raucher]

Hello. Where there any Unmarked English Gold PW cases made during the period of 1830 to 1860? If so, were there many? Was 14kt predominant or was 18kt mostly used on the Marked cases? Thanks. Robert..

[Robert T. Raucher]

Hello. Where there any Unmarked English Gold PW cases made during the period of 1830 to 1860? If so, were there many? Was 14kt predominant or was 18kt mostly used on the Marked cases? Thanks. Robert..

[David Thomas]

Hallmarking cases was, and is, a legal requirement in the UK. From 1798 the two standards were 22 carat and 18 carat. In 1854 the 15, 12 and 9 carat standards were introduced. Most English watch cases I have seen are either 18 or 9 carat.

There has never been a standard for 14 carat gold in the UK.

[Robert T. Raucher]

Thanks for the imformation. When was the Legal requirement enacted to actually "Mark" gold cases in the U.K.? Anyone?

[Dr. Jon]

There have been several statutes requireing markin gof English gold from the middle of the 15th century. At times the penalty for diddling hallmarks was death. They took this stuff VERY seriously.

14K GOld became legal in Englan sometime about 1980 when they entered the common market. A websearch on ENglish hall marks will quickly get you into a site that expalins all fo this as will several books, not handy at teh moment.

England is a large and diverse country so to say 14K gold was never sold is silly BUT until England enterred the common market, it would not have been legal or public. The penalties were VERY severe and since 9 and 15 K was legal it was not worth the risk.

These standards were used largely to protect the trade so no one would have stocked or openly sold 14K gold ware.

Pre common marker, it could have been imported, but only to be sold as used. Imported new gold had to be assayed and marked with a duty mark.

An English watch case could be marked "14 Carat Gold", quite legally even if it were made of cast iron. All they cared about was the hallmark. They figured that if you were too dumb or ignorant to accept anything but a hall mark you were too dumb to try to protect.

I have seen at least one such case which was solid brass at an auction. For this reason I know such things were done.

If you have such a piece consider it valuable and, hopefully, not too expensive lesson.

[David Thomas]

If you need more information read
"Watch Case Makers of England 1720-1920" by Philip T. Priestley (NAWCC Supplement 20 published Spring 1994)

Highly recommended.

[Dr. Jon]

Right on David.

The NAWCC sells reprints of this for a ridiculously low price, I think under $10 including postage.

There is a lot of material on the web too bu this rerpint is hte the best buy you will find for a long time. IF it prevents you from buying one phoney case it will pay for itself many times

[Dr. Jon]

Apologies I gave you some bad advice. I have good documentation that there were 14k English watches

What we have said about Eglish hallmarking is correct and the hallmarked grades were 9, 15, 18 and 22k gold.

HOWEVER on reading the reprint of the Smith catalog I found on p 30 a listing of small English ladies watches advertised in 14 ct cases. This is circa 1900 so the guild influence was pretty much gone and I doubt that the watch would not have been Englishhallmarked but probably bore some kind of mark.

The Swiss 14k hall mark is a small squirrel and is very small. It is worth looking for on the case.

My guess is that it was Swiss as American gold law allows for 1/2 carat underweight which it almost always has(and this really pisses off jewelers in other countries). Such gold might have caused problems for the market and since the French only recognized 18K th telikely sorce of the Smith cases would most likely have been Switzerland.

Does anyone out there know of more or what Smith's was doing.

[Jerry Freedman]

I have seen an odd 18K English case on a Tobias watch dating from about 1854. It had all the English hallmarks except the city mark. The makers mark was unknown. There was some speculation that the watch was shipped to the U.S. illegally to avoid certain fees. Who knows what really went on in those days.

[Dr. Jon]

Jerry

Its hard to know what went on but to get any hall mark the maker had to apply his or her stamp and to get any hall mark the feees had to have been paid.

Tobias was a high volume operator and my guess is that the assay office just forgot to add a mark while dealing with a large consignment. Tobias exported a lot so the office may well have been under time pressure. In those days time and tide waited for no one. It may have been a case of get it out or wait for the next silaing, perhaos an extra several months of keeping it on the books.

I recetly saw a Jospeh Johnson Liverpool watch case with the 22k mark (The lion, same as sterling) and no discrenable date letter, although it did have five stamps.

Stamping was a hand process and what is surprisioing is how rarely they got it wrong or forgot a stamp.