Reading Time at HSNY: Horology FAQ
This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarians. Today’s post is by Miranda Marraccini.
In the course of my three-plus years welcoming visitors to our library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), I’ve developed a kind of intuition for the types of questions I tend to get asked, horological and otherwise. I don’t want to brag, but most people will get only a few words into their query before I have some idea of what they’re looking for and how to find it. After all, it’s my job, and I enjoy it immensely!
Not everyone can visit the library in person to politely pepper me with their inquiries, however. So this month, I’ve devoted my article to answering some of the most frequently asked questions I receive on a daily basis at the library.
Of course, you’re in front of a screen right now, so it’s possible you’ve already asked ChatGPT these questions. But if you don’t feel satisfied with the answers our robot overlord offers, why not take some advice from me, your friendly time librarian? I can guarantee you I’m not hallucinating. Here are 12 FAQs, one for every hour on the dial, in no particular order.
What is the number one book for a beginner in watchmaking?
It doesn’t get better than George Daniels’ “Watchmaking.” Daniels, probably the most renowned horologist of the 20th century, created a novel co-axial escapement that dramatically reduced the amount of friction produced as a watch runs, which, as my readers know, was a BIG DEAL. So he knew what he was talking about, to say the least.
In all, we have no fewer than 21 books authored, part-authored, or edited by Daniels. We have several copies of “Watchmaking” available at all times at HSNY, as well as “The Practical Watch Escapement.” Daniels co-authored the straightforwardly titled “Watches” with Cecil Clutton, which is an excellent illustrated historical overview of watch development.
Image 1: Dial decoration patterns from “The Magic of Watches” by Louis Nardin.
Daniels can be a dense read, though. If what you’re interested in is building your own watch, one option is “Beginner Watchmaking: How to Build Your Very First Watch” by Tim Swike. What I like about this very conversational book is that the author assumes zero knowledge and includes many large pictures. He introduces the reader to each part of a watch and includes quartz watches, which many authors don’t. Swike shows you how to find an affordable watch online and then customize it with a new dial, hands, band, or movement.
Another option for learning repair is the classic “The Watch Repairer’s Manual,” written by HSNY President Henry Fried in 1949 and still as relevant as ever.
If what you’re interested in is learning about watch collecting and the luxury watch industry, I recommend “The Magic of Watches” by Louis Nardin. Image 1 shows an illustrated page of dial decoration patterns you might find in high-end watches.
How much is my Rolex worth?
If you show me your wrist, I’ll make you an offer!
Just kidding. We don’t offer valuations. But your friendly librarians at HSNY are happy to help you research any brand or type of watch. For Rolex, some of our newer offerings are “Vintage Rolex: The Largest Collection in the World” and Mara Cappelletti’s “Rolex Philosophy.” For Patek, you might like to peruse John Reardon’s learned oeuvre.
But what’s the best watch? Should I buy a Rolex or Omega or Patek?
The best watch is the one you love, the one you’ll wear even when you’re not going anywhere but the bagel place, or even just sitting on the couch. I’ve got tiny vintage watches that spark joy every time I wear them, all bought for under $150. There really is no universal watch.
If you’re looking for a watch as an investment, one place to search is our collection of vintage price guides. You can find a watch that was collectible in 1989, and see how much it’s going for today. It’s probably faring better than your Beanie Baby collection.
I inherited a pocket watch from my grandparent. How do I find out more about it?
The internet can be really helpful for this kind of question, because enthusiasts make it their business to track down obscure makers and untangle convoluted industrial histories. I often refer visitors to the NAWCC members’ forum, where helpful horologists ask and answer questions about dial painting, electric horology, and even recovering stolen watches. The American Pocket Watch forum is especially active. I also recently discovered the Pocket Watch Database, which is very user-friendly for the non-initiated (like me).
If you’d like to bring your pocket watch (or pictures of it) into our library, we’ll do everything we can to help you learn more about the watch’s manufacture and its history. Our pocket watch section is robust, covering European and American models in detail. Reinhard Meis’ “Pocket watches : from the pendant watch to the Tourbillon” is pretty comprehensive.
How can I become a watchmaker?
“I like to take watches apart but I can’t put them back together.” That’s the line I hear most often from visitors at HSNY who are interested in learning more about watchmaking. There’s no need to struggle on your own, squinting at a diagram or advancing laboriously through a YouTube video frame by frame. (No shade to YouTube, still an excellent learning tool.)
You can get some hands-on experience in one of our classes, designed just for beginners. If you drop a screw, well, you won’t be the first or the last. A few classes won’t qualify you to be a watchmaker, however. Just like any career, if you decide you want to pursue watchmaking full-time, you can pursue a full-time certification program. There are nine US-based options for you, and we offer scholarships to all of them.
A classic horology textbook that we have in our library is “Theory of Horology,” always in high demand for watchmaking students and aspiring students. Also popular is the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking Training Manual.
I wear a smartwatch. Am I welcome here?
No, we’ll chase you off the premises. Yes, of course! In fact, my co-librarian, St John Karp, recently wrote an article about this very topic. Smartwatches have their place, and we even consider them a kind of gateway watch that encourages the wearer to try on other types of wristwear. You don’t need to wear a mechanical watch, an expensive watch, or any kind of watch at all to participate in our programming.
How can I get my watch repaired?
One option is to learn the basics yourself in one of our evening or weekend classes, described above, and repair it yourself! The books I recommended in the first answer will help you follow up and expand your knowledge.
As a nonprofit, we do not endorse specific businesses. A good resource is the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute’s “Find a Professional” website, where you can do your own research. You can enter your ZIP code and get a list of watch and clockmakers in your area, sorted by specialty.
What do you do here?
As a librarian, I help answer people’s questions about watches, clocks, calendars, navigation, sundials, and many other topics related to time and timekeeping. Alongside my co-librarian, St John, I choose new books to add to the collection; organize our ephemera, books, and catalogs; and write about the library, along with other outreach.
You’re welcome to come to the library to conduct your research, or email us with questions at library@hs-ny.org. And if you just want to browse and admire the view of 44th Street from our spectacular windows, feel free to stop by for that reason too!
I spoke in detail about the job of a horological librarian on a 2023 episode of “The Waiting List,” a watch collecting podcast. Some of the information about HSNY is now outdated, but if you’re the type of person who wants to get into the weeds about Library of Congress classification, you’ll enjoy this chat.
What is longitude and how is it related to time?
It’s a long story (har har.) Dava Sobel’s “Longitude” is still one of the most important works on this topic, and we have several editions of the book, including an illustrated version and translations in German, French, and Italian.
Basically, the very short version is that before the late 18th century, European mariners had limited options for figuring out longitude, their east-west position as they crossed oceans. Lots of them died of scurvy in the middle of the vast watery expanse. The British government (among others) offered a prize for determining longitude, which eventually led to the development of the marine chronometer. This device could tell time at sea precisely enough to calculate distance traveled, which in turn allowed the determination of a ship’s longitude.
For more, check out this article I wrote a couple of years ago that illustrates the race to develop the marine chronometer with contemporaneous books.
What is time?
Image 2: “The Book of Time” by Gerald Lynton Kaufman.
My colleague St John asks this question every time a physicist stops into the library and reports getting this answer back: “We’re working on it.” But if you’re interested in exploring this big question, we do have several sections of the library where you’ll find relevant information, including our philosophy shelves. That’s where we keep books with titles like “Travels in Four Dimensions”; “Time, The Familiar Stranger”; “A Watched Pot: How We Experience Time”; and of course, “What is Time?” (two different books). Image 2 shows a particularly attractive book jacket design for “The Book of Time,” which covers no less than eight dimensions, “proving that Time does not exist, and also that Time always exists.”
Why does a clock have 12 hours (or 24)?
I’m also going to leave this explanation to St John. He reports that in her essay in the 2001 book “The Discovery of Time,” Harvard scientific instrument curator Sara Schechner unearths an answer. In St John’s words, “the Egyptians recognized 36 time-telling stars, of which only about 12 were visible on a given day, so the night was divided into 12 parts based on the rising of these stars. This led them to divide the day into 12 parts as well… The 24-hour day then reached the Babylonians, then the Greeks.”
As far as “the subdivision into 60 minutes and seconds,” according to St John’s research, that comes from Mesopotamian mathematics. The Mesopotamians “hadn't invented fractional numbers, so they favored whole numbers that were most divisible without leaving a remainder (60 can be evenly divided by more numbers than 100).”
When was the first clock invented?
It depends on what counts as a clock! Is a sundial a clock? What about an hourglass? It’s all a little hazy that far back, but the earliest time-telling mechanisms (probably water clocks) are several millennia old, while the earliest mechanical clocks that we might recognize as clocks today were probably built around 1300. That’s when clockmakers developed the weight-driven movement in which the release of power is regulated by an escapement.
We’ve got quite a few books that cover the development of the clock, but some of the most fun to read are “Hands of Time” by Rebecca Struthers (which covers the history of time measurement broadly, in an inviting tone) and “About Time: a History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks” by David Rooney.
Of course, this is only a small sampling of the help we provide at HSNY. You might have something incredibly obscure on your mind, and if so, we would welcome the challenge of hunting down that information! If you need to see a Seiko watch parts interchangeability list from 1972, we got you. If you need to look up a 17th-century apprentice in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, we can hook you up.
Is there anything else you’d like to quiz us about? If so, you can stop by our library in person or ask your question by email at library@hs-ny.org. No question is too obvious, or too weird, to receive a warm welcome in our inbox.