Swiss watches

[Debbiejane48]

My great great grandfather was Frederick G Vaucher who was from Switzerland and was. Watchmaker in St Louis Missouri. I would love to buy a watch he made.

 

[tick talk]

Do you have reliable information that your relative made watches under his own name? I ask because a search of Gould's Directory for St. Louis in 1901 shows your ancestor employed as a watchmaker but not advertising under his name. This may be because he was employed at a jewellers that labeled watches under their name. There are other possibilities, perhaps he only did service and repairs, but it helps to clarify what you know already. PS. Neuchatel, where he was born, is a wonderful city steeped in watchmaking history and worth a visit if your ancestry research gets to that point.

PPS. returned to add this photo of Frederic Vaucher, watchmaker in St. Louis; a pretty dapper fellow wearing his watch in the upper jacket pocket.

 

[Debbiejane48]

Do you have reliable information that your relative made watches under his own name? I ask because a search of Gould's Directory for St. Louis in 1901 shows your ancestor employed as a watchmaker but not advertising under his name. This may be because he was employed at a jewellers that labeled watches under their name. There are other possibilities, perhaps he only did service and repairs, but it helps to clarify what you know already. PS. Neuchatel, where he was born, is a wonderful city steeped in watchmaking history and worth a visit if your ancestry research gets to that point.

 

[Debbiejane48]

His obituary states it and if you look up in the census he is listed as a watchmaker and owned his own business. I have a picture of a watch he made. When he first moved to St Louis he worked for Jacquard jewelry store.

 

[tick talk]

There is an earlier discussion of that watch here: St. Louis Captain's Watch with some interesting commentary. In addition to the two images from Jeff Hess' Flicker feed that you've posted, here are the ones showing the marks in question.

 

[Debbiejane48]

Do you have reliable information that your relative made watches under his own name? I ask because a search of Gould's Directory for St. Louis in 1901 shows your ancestor employed as a watchmaker but not advertising under his name. This may be because he was employed at a jewellers that labeled watches under their name. There are other possibilities, perhaps he only did service and repairs, but it helps to clarify what you know already. PS. Neuchatel, where he was born, is a wonderful city steeped in watchmaking history and worth a visit if your ancestry research gets to that point.

PPS. returned to add this photo of Frederic Vaucher, watchmaker in St. Louis; a pretty dapper fellow wearing his watch in the upper jacket pocket.
View attachment 739460

I am in the process of trying to verify if this is really Frederick or another of our ancestors.

 

[gmorse]

Hi Debbiejane,

Just to be clear, those marks which were clearly intended to suggest English hallmarks are nothing of the kind, they're fake marks, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the case itself is in any way inferior in its workmanship.

It's also true that for many hundreds of years, no single craftsperson made a complete watch by themselves, it was always a joint effort between a larger group of specialists.

Regards,

Graham