美国表收藏专题讨论

xhandy 发表于 2012-9-11 23:56
990当然是很纯种，但在美国表中太普通了。

经过这些日子的摸索，终于得出这么一个组合：
汉密顿946，华生1892日用必备

高露云阿斯曼三尺寸收齐，机心完好即可，面盘，表壳有必要的话就重配

高端的美国表就选法素！有钥匙的！

nomorewatch 发表于 2012-10-22 13:34
经过这些日子的摸索，终于得出这么一个组合：
汉密顿946，华生1892日用必备

阿斯曼高路云的壳还好配，反正是标准尺寸的，但盘面就基本不可能了，都是一芯配一盘，除非从一个破芯上取盘，但破芯的盘也不会好。

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 22:15
阿斯曼高路云的壳还好配，反正是标准尺寸的，但盘面就基本不可能了，都是一芯配一盘，除非从一个破芯上取 ...

如果能把机芯收齐的话，我打算找RGM给他们配机镂的金属面和蓝钢针，反正这类型货色的市场太有限，跟法素没什么区别。

还有，你觉得我在第九页的更新如何？我可是花了不少业余精力才想出来问他们的

nomorewatch 发表于 2012-10-7 06:27
说起美国国籍，却不是美国土生土长的制表大师，NAWCC的老大有此一论：
“包括法苏在内的很多人其实都是美 ...

这些制表师的作品都被认为是美国表，这点基本上没什么异议。更典型的高路云，也一直是作为美国表存在，即使是德国血统+瑞士工艺，但品牌是美国的。

nomorewatch 发表于 2012-10-18 11:40
玛瑙夹板的华生我找得到，中士肯帮我找。

至于功德圆不圆满，其实看自己而已，美国表从来不是欣赏人文 ...

玛瑙夹板的华生要找大尺寸的那只，记得几年前的估价是50万美元，小尺寸的一般般了。

nomorewatch 发表于 2012-10-9 06:51
这个当然，我的梦想你懂的。

再说说法苏的事儿，北美学会的老大说了，法苏的风格完全没有 ...

要考究他的指标技术来源，估计要采访他本人了，这种东西要深究下去还有很多功夫要做，记得有美国表迷要考究费城表公司的渊源，还实地到表厂当年的地址找资料，可惜物是人非了。不过好在美国的历史资料保存得很好，很多公共信息都保留下来，而且管理得很好，比如到图书馆可以查询百多年来的报纸等资料，有兴趣的话也可以作为自己课外的专题研究玩玩，说不定还会发现新天地。

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 23:04
这些制表师的作品都被认为是美国表，这点基本上没什么异议。更典型的高路云，也一直是作为美国表存在，即 ...

个人觉得，美国表的纵深就在这些欧洲移民的作品里边，比起他们，什么华生，汉密顿，埃尔金都是浮云！哪怕是他们的巨作！

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 23:05
玛瑙夹板的华生要找大尺寸的那只，记得几年前的估价是50万美元，小尺寸的一般般了。

玛瑙夹板的表就算了吧，毕竟我不想要这么脆弱的货色

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 23:10
要考究他的指标技术来源，估计要采访他本人了，这种东西要深究下去还有很多功夫要做，记得有美国表迷 ...

我没那么厉害可以贯通阴阳，不过，就美国某些珍贵的表款为什么原装重金壳总是被拆走，钟博士透露了一些重要的信息：

“阿尔巴尼是一个政治气息浓厚的城市，也是在纽约州一个非常腐败的城市。曾经有朋友告诉过我（其中一位做过负责洗钱的工作，另一位是房地产经纪），如果我加入了得势的政党而且被认证为可信的选民的话，我的所得税将会得到额外的减免，尽管在我搬了四次家以后不再遇到过这种情况。

因为政治气候复杂，所以局势不稳定，所以有很多人需要快钱着草。因此，很多原装表壳是重金的怀表被脱掉了壳子，它们的主人要得就是那些快钱而已。那个时代，钟表收藏根本未成气候（起码在公共范围内），我怀疑直到二战结束，那些表的机心才得以在钟表珠宝店的橱窗里重见天日。自从NAWCC创建以来，钟表收藏的正确观念才得以逐步确立并且形成气候。

很多早期的收藏家觉得给自己的美国表“升升级”无所谓（你懂的），所以很多机芯在没有得到保护的情况下被晾了很久，在我们现在的观点看来是很可恶的。而波特的命运则好多了，因为市场更国际化，所以他们的拥有者一般不会这么虐待它们，但仍然有一部分的波特失去了原装表壳。

记得在四十年前，我刚刚接触钟表的时候，在一个店口里见到满桌子机心，用一位数的价格买下了那个店所有的PP怀表机心。当时，我身边根本没有什么爱好者或者拥挤的人群；当然，收一大堆这样的机心在当时不会被当作是悲剧式的教训（玩玩多好）。如果要造壳的话，当时的成本甚至要比购买整只古董怀表高50%！由于机心的价值只占了很小一部分，所以表壳成为了换钱的目标。一旦脱壳，机心买卖被视为公平的游戏。（？勉强译出这句话）

看看那些广为人知的购物指南，你就意识到，一个喜欢尝试新鲜事物的人比那些有能力收藏法苏的人更不会去做翻新机心之类的事。还记得我刚开始玩表的时候，我还真的试过动手去给机心进行抛光打磨，幸好当时手里边没有什么珍贵的宝贝，我那时候真的觉得自己是在“提升”机心的性能。

回到原装表壳的问题，的确，从收藏角度看，原装表壳的价值是备受认可的。虽然绝大部分美国表是没有原装表壳的概念——机心和表壳分开销售。不过，像法苏这种情况就另当别论了，因为他们这样的制表师都是从表壳制造商那里进行特殊订造的，所以每只机心和表壳有相应的号码。当然，不排除原装壳是包金的，后来换上了K金壳。这样的事情也会引起争议，不过这样的灵活性还是值得赞叹的。

法苏的表市场很小，而且基本都是在动荡不安的地方被购置。所以很多的原装表壳被人取下换钱，机心重新装壳后被铁路工人使用，很多都在收藏风气形成气候之前就完蛋了（算不算用得其所？）剩下的就非常珍贵了。

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 23:10
要考究他的指标技术来源，估计要采访他本人了，这种东西要深究下去还有很多功夫要做，记得有美国表迷 ...

原文在这里，不过很多拼写错漏，容后再改：

This is speculation, but Albany is a political city, and from my experience one of the most corrupt in New York (based in the stories I heard at work from a guy who claimed to have been a bag man and my realtor who told me I would get my property tax reduced once I had registered with the right party and was known to be a reliable voter, something I never encountered in my four other relocations).

A corrollary is that fortunes rapidly rise and fall in such areas. A lot of gold watch cases got scrapped to raise fast cash. Watch collecting did not become wide spread, at least publicly, until after World War II so I suspect there were a lot of uncased movements lying around various pawn and jeweler supply shops. Also, since the founding of the NAWCC, the spirit and sense of what is right and reasonable has evolved a lot and become more widespread.

Lots of early collectors saw mo problem with "improving" their watches. Thus the movements were exposed for a long time to practices we now consider apalling . Potter, by contrast tended to sell to more cosmopolitan families which tend to hold their possessions but still a lot of them also got their cases scrapped.

To put this in perspective, I recall being at a mart 40 years ago and seeing a table full of movements. I looked them over and bought all the Patek Philippes I recognized for single digit prices. I had no competition no crowd reaching around me for stuff. Making one of these into a a set or earings would not then have been considered much a a tragedy. If you did get a case made, the cost of doing it was still about 50% higher than the cost of very fine complete old example. Movements for the most part had little value so the issues is why so many got their cases scrapped. ONce de cased they were widely regarded as fair game.

Look at the early Ehrhardt price guides to see a real temptation to build or buy a time travel machine. A person who liked to "try things" would have a lot less reservation about "improving" a Fasoldt than any modestly knowledgable collector would today. These changes are recent. When I started I often polished plates by hand. Fortunately, I did not do this to rare items but only because I did not ahve any. I really thought I was improving them.

To answer your question original cases are always preferred. American watches are mostly standard sizes and most were sold separately from cases so originality is harder to prove and most pwople accept lack of screw marks and period appropriate as original. SOme US case makers did special order and did put the movement number on the case. These are probably original but it is also possible that a watch woudl be bought with a cheap gold filled case to carry it until teh special order case with the rigt decoration adn serial number was delivered and the watch installed. I Fthat happened is the new gold case original. Its an intersting situation and argument, which in my view shows that some flexibility is prident.

Fasoldt watches were sold in a very smalll and economically turbulent area. Many lost their cases and fell into the hands of tinkerers and those with more base motives, and much was done innocently before the current views became widespread.

nomorewatch 发表于 2012-10-23 13:12
我没那么厉害可以贯通阴阳，不过，就美国某些珍贵的表款为什么原装重金壳总是被拆走，钟博士透露了一些重 ...

厉害！以小见大，从钟表收藏看出时代特征！

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 23:10
要考究他的指标技术来源，估计要采访他本人了，这种东西要深究下去还有很多功夫要做，记得有美国表迷 ...

Albert Henry Potter 7/3/1836 - 1/25/1908


Albert H. Potter was born in Mechanicville, NY on July 3, 1836. He was the second child of four. Little is written of his early life except the tale, related in Paul Chamberlain's "It's About Time", of Albert and his younger brother, William Cleveland (Cleve), borrowing his uncle's watch and taking it apart, and just managing to get it back together.

Of his horological career we know that he completed a three year apprenticeship with Wood and Foley in Albany, NY, then set up shop in New York City in about 1855. For the next six years Potter built some of the most beautiful examples of watch craftmanship the horological world has seen. They number some 35 movements, including chronometers, both fusee and going barrel, lever escapements, key wind, bridge and three quarter plate.
These were extremely high grade watches and sold for $225. to $350.

Potter could have worked his entire career in New York and would have probably become the dean of American watchmakers. But for reasons unexplained, he was not satisfied with New York and in 1861 took a job in Havana, Cuba, where he continued to develop his watchmaking skills, designing a quarter repeater and type of duplex escapement. In 1866, Potter was back in New York, and in 1868, he filed the first of his 16 patents, a
chronometer escapement which had the advantage of not requiring a detent spring, and used smaller more sturdy teeth on the escape wheel.

By 1870, Potter had moved to Chicago and in 1872 he set up a firm (Potter Brothers) with his brother Cleve. He left the business in 1875. In 1874-76, Potter filed for six more patents, including a novel design for a compensation balance, two escapements, and a barrel arbor. Several of these patents appear to be used in a 12 second tourbillon featured (with photographs) in the 1987 Revue de L'Horlogerie Ancienne.

In 1876, at what was approaching the height of his career, Albert Potter moved again, this time to Geneva, Switzerland. He continued to make high grade watches, including minute repeaters, minute repeaters with chronograph, and minute repeaters with perpetual calendar and moon phase, and he continued to experiment with escapement design. It's worth mentioning that Potter's watches cost $250.-$500. at a time when Vacheron & Constantin's lowest grade caliber sold for $25.

The patents that Potter took out in 1887 provide some evidence that his high grade watches were not a business success. After 32 years of producing masterpieces of design and construction, Potter's seven patents of 1887 included such economical designs as a combined watch movement frame and case body, where the pillar plate and sides of the case were stamped from a single piece of metal, and a watch case pendant that snapped into a
rectangular hole in the case body. These patents were used in the construction of a mass-produced, low-priced watch made in a suburb of Geneva called Charmilles, the watch going by that name. Although not entirely unsuccessful, the watch was a financial failure for Potter, and by 1895, Potter had given up watchmaking completely. Still the inventor, from 1892 through 1897, Potter worked on designs for a steam powered carriage, a high pressure steam boiler and a bicycle cyclometer. Each of these ended in failure for one reason or another. By 1900 he was ill with disease of the intestines and spine that caused partial paralysis, and he died in 1908.

However, Potter's works live on. Many were acquired by Paul Chamberlain, and some found their way to the NAWCC museum, where we can still visit them and be reminded of one of the great masters of horology.


References:

Paul M. Chamberlain, "It's About Time",

"Albert H. Potter, American Individualist", Revue de L'Horlogerie Ancienne,
No. 22, 1987, pp. 64-71, Thanslated by T. L. Huguelet, April 1991 (NAWCC
'Vertical Files')

Kathleen Prichard, "Library News, Potter-Burger Letters," NAWCC Bulletin
#290, P. 382, l994.

Michael Edidin, "Timely Voices, A Watch of Broken Dreams," NAWCC Bulletin #
,pp. 516-7, 1996.

Albert H. Potter, U.S. Patent Numbers 73646, 168581-3, 360474-8, US. Patent
Office, NAWCC Library special section.

xhandy 发表于 2012-10-21 22:15
阿斯曼高路云的壳还好配，反正是标准尺寸的，但盘面就基本不可能了，都是一芯配一盘，除非从一个破芯上取 ...

我再次修改了狩猎清单，美国大牌子的顶级货色都入不了我的眼睛了，多亏有你们啊！

Charles Fasoldt (1818-1898)
He was born in Dresden in 1818 and was sentenced to death in 1848 because of his participation in the revolution. He managed to escape from jail though and emigrated to the United States. He settled in Albany and began setting up an impressive enterprise, which produced clocks, measuring instruments and microscopes as well as his famous watches. He sold the watches for 150 to 300 dollars per piece, which was a considerable price at the time. All watches were designed by Fasoldt himself and nearly all of them had his patented anchor escapement. For his pocket watches he invented a mechanism for winding and setting the hands - this cleared the way for the change from key wind to crown wind systems. Fasoldt patented his extraordinarily dependable escapement on March 7, 1865; the system requires no greasing and has a very strong angle of drag at both anchor pallets. Fasoldt carried out a spectacular test to prove the reliability of his escapement: he attached one of his pocket watches as well as several watches of other makers to the connecting rod of an Empire Express train engine for a return trip Albany - New York - Albany. After the bumpy ride Fasoldt's watch showed only a slight deviation while all the other watches had stopped after just a few minutes.


Arthur Bott, Albany N.Y. – a German-American success story
Arthur Bott was born in Fulda in 1830 and had emigrated to America as a young man, where he founded a board mill in Albany.
In 1868 Bott opened the first American-owned company for dyestuffs in Albany: the "Albany Aniline & Chemical Works".
He sold his shares at a great profit to Friedrich Beyer in 1871; Beyer was the founder of today’s Bayer AG. The company remained the property of BASF till it finally closed its doors in 2000. Until then it had still been the largest factory for dyestuffs in the United States.

lxhprc 发表于 2012-7-25 17:38
Hamilton 900, 400, 950, 946, 22, 21。其他牌子的不熟悉是我喜欢的不是顶级的

这不是问题，实际上我就非常喜欢22和21，都是价廉物美的好东西

xhandy 发表于 2012-7-25 18:01
21钻的华生1872、Edward Howard！玩到这两只基本上就功德完满了。当然还有更夸张的玛瑙夹板华生和超罕有的M ...

个人觉得，还是EH，汉密顿22号和埃尔金162，独立制表师的作品也不错，高露云阿斯曼也可以（有了这个，其他德国表基本可以无视）

突然对表没有那么多渴望了，能得到的就是最好的。

漫步林间 发表于 2012-10-31 05:37
突然对表没有那么多渴望了，能得到的就是最好的。

这话对路

美国怀表我个收藏汉密尔顿920 921 900 等，其他的美国牌子我觉得都差不多。

腕表玩家 发表于 2012-11-3 11:19
美国怀表我个收藏汉密尔顿920 921 900 等，其他的美国牌子我觉得都差不多。

现在，个人觉得美国怀表的精髓有两个：第一，老一代欧洲移民及其后裔（独立制表人）的作品；第二，诸如汉密顿22号，埃尔金FATHER Time之类的航海表，航空表或者高级铁路表