The history of a pocket watch began around 1510. The first watch to have in a vest or trousers pocket was made by a mechanic Peter Henlein from Nuremberg, Germany. It had one hour-hand, so it could only show approximate time. It did not have a glass covering a clock face. Therefore, there was a hummock on each number to determine the time by touch without taking the watch out of one’s pocket. The pocket watch was usually worn on a chain with a breloque.

The collection of the Oryol Museum of Local History contains a pocket watch “Paul Buhre” made in the late 19th — early 20th century. On the reverse side of the case is the coat of arms of the Russian Empire and the inscription “Paul Buhre, supplier of His Majesty”s Court”. The inscription “Paul Buhre” has also been preserved on the clock-face.

The Russian watch company “Paul Buhre” was founded in 1874. In 1815, watchmaker Karl Buhre moved to St. Petersburg from Revel and founded a small family watch production in the capital. His son Paul Buhre continued his father’s legacy. From early childhood, his grandson, also Paul, actively helped Buhre in running the family business and, in 1868, became his partner. In 1874, he purchased a large watch factory in the Swiss city of Le Locle. A few years later, Paul Buhre became an official appraiser of watches and other mechanical devices at the emperor’s office and received a right to place the state emblem on his products.

In addition to pocket watches, the company produced travel clocks, wall clocks, wag-on-the-wall clocks. Buhre’s items were commissioned by the War Ministry and the Ministry of Railways.

In 1888, Paul Buhre was forced to retire due to serious health problems. He had no immediate heirs, so he decided to sell the factory in Le Locle to its direct manager, Paul Girard, and his colleague Jean-Georges (Georg) Pfund. The new owners established the trading house ‘Paul Buhre’. In order not to pay high customs duties, only parts were supplied to Russia from Switzerland, and the watches were assembled in the workshops of St. Petersburg.

In 1899, the company received the title of ‘Supplier of the Court of His Imperial Majesty’. At the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, the company received a gold medal.

In 1892, the company opened its first own store in Moscow, and a little later — a branch in Kyiv. In the same year, Paul Buhre died before he reached the age of 50, and the position of the full-time appraiser of watches and other mechanical products for His Majesty was given to Buhre’s successor Jean-Georges Pfund.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the company’s property was nationalized.

Полное наименование: Mechanical (balance) pocket watch “Paul Buhre”
Дата создания: the late 19th — early 20th century
Место создания: Russia
Размеры: diameter 5.5 cm
Правообладатель изображений: Budgetary Cultural Institution of the Oryol Region “Oryol Museum of Local History”
Коллекция: Items of technology history
Техника: stamping, mechanical work, coating

The first spring clock was created by an unknown master for the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good around 1430. This table clock was made of bronze; its height reached half a meter.

The first portable mechanical clocks with a spring mechanism were made of brass in the form of a round or square box with a horizontal clock face. The clock was marked with engraved Roman numerals with convex brass “grains” (balls) in a circle, by which it was possible to determine the time in the dark by touch. There was only one hand, often it was made in the form of a fantastic creature, for example, a dragon or a mermaid.

Table clocks with the case in form of medieval towers appeared later, by the end of the 15th century. They were equipped with one hand, too, but there were two faces: one face to show the time and the second face to set up the alarm clock.

Before the appearance of screws, iron parts of mechanisms were connected with the help of pins and wedges. The winding spring was a long and wide steel band. It could not work without an auxiliary mechanism that equalized its driving force. For this purpose, a fusee was used — a brass truncated cone, on which a string of catgut (sheep intestines) or a flat metal chain of 500 or more links was wound.

The mechanisms of early spring clocks had a spindle stroke. Such clocks did not have a pendulum, and as a stroke regulator, they used a foliot — a horizontal bar with a weight at each end, which, however, did not ensure the accuracy of the stroke. The hour hand could make a daily error of 30 minutes or even more.

The Dutch mechanic Christiaan Huygens solved this problem. In 1657, he received a patent for the design of a pendulum clock. The central part was the anchor, which periodically pushed the pendulum and supported its steady undamped oscillations.

Huygens studied the features of the pendulum for about 40 years and tried to improve it. His goal was to adapt a pendulum clock to determine longitude at sea, but he did not succeed. The English watchmaker John Harrison invented a reliable and accurate marine chronometer only in 1735.

Полное наименование: Mechanical table clock. Bronze, iron, glass
Дата создания: the 18th century
Место создания: Germany
Размеры: 9×8×5.5 cm
Правообладатель изображений: Budgetary Cultural Institution of the Oryol Region “Oryol Museum of Local History”