Wednesday 19 September 2012

Cyclops unique clocks

Mr Jones Watches has produced five unique clocks for London Design Week 2012, these clocks are being auctioned in aid of the charity Kids Company.


To celebrate London design week, we have collaborated with five of our favourite illustrators (and one photographer!) to create a bespoke series of Cyclops clocks.

We are thrilled with the results and each unique clock is being auctioned on ebay. All the money raised will be donated to Kids Company so please bid generously to support this great charity and be the lucky owner of a completely unique clock.The auction ends September 26th so get bidding to be in with a chance to win! 



New York based illustrator Kirsten Ulve has created a dial with 12 faces to mark the hours. She explains, "a ring of characters usher one through the hours of the day. I thought it would be fun to shout out: "it's owl o'clock!" or moan "it's around sad troll thirty."










The British Illustrator Andy Watt offers a new take on the idea of clock watching - 12 eyes watch us from the dial!









New York Artist/Author/Illustrator You Byun has created a colourful, fantasy world with her clock titled "My Magic Moments", "the work illustrates whimsical time with dreamy elements - such as imaginary lovely creatures, candy coloured ivy, rainbow coloured clouds, or sparkling snow-like stars. Your magical moments are endless! "










Chris Overend has photographed the actor Elijah Reid for the 12 hour markers, "the clock shows Elijah through a 12 hour period - with the portraits for each hour mirroring the light of the day and the mood of the model: the idea being that it is not only the face of the clock but the face of the subject that shows us the passing of time."











Welsh Illustrator Hannah Davies has created a colourful artwork for the dial of her clock, "my inspiration was retro 60s shapes and psychedelic colours. I wanted to bring vibrant, detailed decoration into peoples lives."











Clock Specifications:
Outer case: steel
Clock face diameter: 225mm
Clock overall diameter: 250mm
Mechanism: quartz mechanism
Battery: 1 x AA
Packing c
arton: 305mm x 305mm x 70mm



All the contributors gave their time for free and the clocks are being auctioned in aid of the charity Kids Company who provide practical, emotional and educational support to vulnerable over 17,000 inner-city children across London.





about the artists

Kirsten Ulve is a New York City based illustrator who discovered magic playing in the woods outside her native Midwestern town of Dubuque, Iowa. Her other early obsessions (Lite Brite, puppets and discotheques), as well as a previous career in graphic design have all contributed to the style and mood of her work.  Kirsten's happy clientelle includes The New Yorker, Glamour Magazine, Hasbro, Mattel, and Palty of Japan. She has exhibited her work in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Tokyo, and is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly and Boston Magazines. Kirsten currently resides in Manhattan with her husband and two black cats, Romulus and Remus (incidentally, her last name means "wolf" in Norwegian).

Andy Watt's work covers the breadth of acerbic illustration, from satirical and political to caricature. His eye for telling details combines with a jaundiced view of the world to result in richly provocative imagery.His work is both repulsive and compelling, and speaks to the cynic in all of us – joining a long tradition of grotesque and satirical illustration.

NYC Artist / Author / Illustrator You Byun was born in Queens, New York. She grew up in US, Japan and Korea. Moved back to New York to be a visual artist, receiving her MFA from School of Visual Arts. You's work is a ritual that recollects and records her memories and emotions; she places her characters in lush environments that hopefully spread joy through the world. Her work has been recognized by various magazines, awards and competitions, including Communication Arts Magazine, Creative Quarterly, Ai-Ap, Society of Illustrators LA, & SCBWI (winning both Grand Prize in Portfolio Award, and Tomie DePaola Award). She is currently working on her second children's book with Nancy Paulsen Books, which is scheduled to be published in 2014. Her first book Dream Friends will be published world-wide in February 2013, with the same publisher. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and works on editorial assignments, gallery pieces, books, stationery cards, and a lot more. 

After the usual childhood dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, Chris Overend realised his passion for photography and could be found camera in hand from the age of seventeen. His first big break came from working with Chris Moore at London Fashion Week, and he cut his teeth assisting photographers including Suki Dhanda, Andy Barter and Perry Curties for clients such as Italian Vogue, Esquire, GQ and The Sunday Times Magazine. He has also personally shot for The Observer, Catwalking.com, Sony BMG. His work has taken him from the arenas of fashion and music to still life and portraiture, and has graced such varied mediums as album covers and the gallery walls of 125 Central Park West. Despite health problems leaving him to shoot from a wheelchair for a year, Chris continues a varied and passionate career as a photographer. In recent years he has developed a passion for motor sports photography, although his signature style remains capturing honest and emotional portraits, which he does using his classic square format Hasselblad.

Hannah Davies is an award winning Welsh based designer and illustrator. She is a fine-detail Surface Pattern Design specialist who draws on her love of nature for inspiration, producing intricate work rich in texture and colour. Combining illustration and pattern design, "I use my imaginative and detailed hand-drawing as a starting point. I then develop this using my own vibrant watercolours and collage techniques creating quirky stories"

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Cyclops remixed workshop

Over the weekend of 15th / 16th September we hosted a workshop where people could come and create their own Cyclops clock. 

Below are a few of our favourites, thanks to everyone who came along and took part!

 

 












Wednesday 5 September 2012

Watch revival No. 6




1916 17J Silver Trench Watch

This is a trench watch from the first world war (most likely owned by a soldier - the luminous painting on the numerals and hands implies military use). The hallmark dates it to 1916, it's 35mm diameter and has an unsigned 17 jewel, adjusted Swiss movement.

It caught my eye for a couple of reasons - firstly because it's a three piece screw case, so an early attempt at sealing the case from the elements (and especially water). The case is made by Dennison who were a Birmingham company who produced high quality watch cases from the late 19th century up until the 1960s. Sadly (and tellingly) there are a number of rather deep gauges which are clearly marks from someone trying to open the case with a knife (i.e. they assumed it was a press-fit case, like the vast majority of early watches were).

 
The second thing that I liked about the watch is that it has 17 jewels, rather than the normal 15. This means that special case has been taken to ensure good running. The movement is also marked "adjusted" meaning that the balance is made in such a way as to negate the effects of temperature. This was done by making the balance from a sandwich  of two metals with complementary heat coefficients, so as one expands [link for explanation of temperature adjustment].

 
Having 17 jewels on a watch of this period is pretty rare and would have commanded a significant premium on a regular movement. The 'extra' two jewels are on the centre wheel pinion, you can see the upper one in the very centre of the movement (jewel number 17 is on the dial side of the movement). As I understand it the reason this is rarely jewelled are twofold: firstly there's not a lot of metal to work with as the bridge is very thin at this point (and the jewel needs to be large for the centre-wheel pivot), The second reason it wasn't often done is that it's not really necessary - the centre wheel pivot turns the most slowly of all the wheels in the gear-train (one revolution every twelve hours).

Anyway I cleaned the movement and reassembled, it was fairly straightforward except I neglected to put the dial feet screws in place before I started reassembly. As these have to sit beneath the bridges I had no choice but to backtrack in order to get them in the right place.


After assembling the movement kept ok time (but it was gaining a few minutes per day), so I took it to Richard Edwards for expert diagnosis. He manipulated the hairspring a bit and managed to get it to around +- 20 seconds per day, which is excellent performance from a watch of this age.


One final observation about this watch is that it doesn't appear to have been serviced very often as there are none of the tell tale repairers marks scratched into the caseback. It must have been serviced at some point because the crown is a replacement.


Wednesday 29 August 2012

1910 Half Hunter wrist watch


 Watch revival no. 5

This is an interesting early watch, dating to 1910. This style of watch, with a smaller glass cover is called a half hunter. It's worth explaining a bit where this name comes from: huntsmen (i.e. men on horseback in pursuit of a fox) and their requirements for a watch: early pocket watches were open faced - so they had a glass face that was easily cracked in the melee of a fox hunt. A Hunter pocket watch had a sold cover over the face, depressing a button on the winding crown would cause the cover to pop open so you could check the time (this could be done one handed by the huntsman). A variation of this was introduced which had a smaller glass face in the centre of the protective cover, so you could see the time without opening the cover.


Ok, so this is a half-hunter wristwatch. It dates from 1910, so pretty early for a watch and doesn't have the luminous hands and numerals that would imply it was for military use. The dial is marked Sir John Bennet Ltd who was a London retailer. Sir John Bennett was the first London 'watchmaker' to begin importing Swiss watches. then casing and signing them in London. The dial is nice because it's clearly the original - made to work with the half-hunter case. The hands look to be original as well because they are the correct size for the opening on the face.



The movement is marked S&Co for Stauffer & Co who were the importers of IWC watches at this time (although this isn't an IWC movement). This tallies with the hallmark on the case back: C.N was Charles Nicolet, a partner and later director of Stauffer & Co. The movement is nicely finished and responded to cleaning very well. I'm not sure how many times the watch has been serviced - it was in pretty tidy order and there aren't any repairer's marks on the inside of the caseback.

The watch is pinset, meaning that you need to push in the little pin above the winder and then turn the crown in order to set the time. The combined hand setting and winding system (that was invented by Patek Philippe in 1845) had not found universal acceptance at this time (or maybe the watch was made down to a price). The importance / desire to make watch cases water tight received considerable impetus in the first world war and naturally there was a move to reduce to a minimum the number of openings in the case. The winding crown may very well be original as well (it's basically a pocket watch crown), it certainly looks right with the case.





The watch once back together isn't running very strongly and has a tendency to stop, looking again at the jewels I think there may be a crack to one of the pallet jewels. Anyway it will go to RE for expert diagnosis.





Assemble

Sunday 26 August 2012

Amazing training head for dental surgeons that's for sale in a Tennants auctioneers (perhaps this is why Dentists have problems emphasizing with their patients!)

Item Lot Number: 1052

A Polished Chrome and Stainless Steel 'Phantom' Dental Surgeons Training Head, comprising a polished chrome head section, upper and lower bite trays stamped 'G.E.G.L. MOH 2466', ratcheted adjusting screw and stainless steel attachment, height 51cm, width 24cm
**Believed to have been originally invented by Oswald Fergus

Estimate: £200-300


http://c0728562.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/SC221052_HR.jpg

Friday 17 August 2012

1910 Chronograph (Rose Watch Co)

A watch from our archive: a 1910 Rose Watch Co Chronograph



This watch is rather special and distinctive for a number of reasons: it's very early for a (man's) wristwatch - the hallmark in the case (London / "P") dates it to 1910/11. It wasn't made for military use as the numbers are not coated with the radioactive lume to allow it to be seen in the dark. 

The crown and seconds layout is rather unconventional (again because it's early for a wristwatch the convention for putting the crown on the right hasn't been established yet). It's from a precurser to the Heuer company: "Rose Watch Co" was a trading name they used for a few years in the early part of the 20th century.



Finally it's in pretty much unworn condition - it's doubtful that it was every retailed at the time that it was made (possibly it started to look dated after a few years: men's watches were generally around 33mm diameter in the 1910s / 1920s and this is rather oversized at 40mm). It's in perfect working order as you can see in the video below. 



Even as a chronograph (chronograph means it works as a stopwatch as well as displaying the time) it's rather unusual having no way of recording elapsed minutes, meaning that it's a stopwatch designed to time events lasting under sixty seconds.

I brought this at auction with only minimal information: it was sold through Fellows in Birmingham and they don't include pictures of the movement, nor do they date the watches from the hallmarks (although they mentioned that it was hallmarked). I thought at the very least it was an interesting and unusual transitional watch in the shift from pocket to wrist timepieces. It wasn't especially expensive, at around £200, but I think I got a bargain!



I did a little research online and found some more examples of Rose Watch Co watches (and also learnt of the link to Heuer). The watches that I have found online are all called "Pulseographe" which was a trade name for the chronographs designed . The Pulsographe has a scale around the edge of the dial to allow the calculation of heart rate from the time taken to count twenty heartbeats (so no requirement for tracking elapsed minutes on the chronograph). 

An ebay pulsographe next to my 1910 Chronograph (auction photo from Fellows)

another Pulsograph movement found online

I've not cleaned the watch (nor do I plan to!), basically I can only make it worse - it's in full running order as it left the factory and I certainly don't plan to spend a lot of time wearing it. The movement is beautifully finished -  nice mix of grained and highly polished parts.




Tuesday 14 August 2012

Olympic London

 
Olympic signage, our first glimpse on the way to the road race!


Team GB's ultimately doomed attempt to control the men's road race


Little time lapse from the wrestling at the ExCel Centre