A former engineer, Craig Duling heads Heritage Management Services as chief executive officer. In addition, Craig Duling is an antiquarian horologist who owns HeritagePocketWatch.com, where he shares his expertise on antique pocket watches. One of the most important events in the history of watch development was the proliferation of the railroad system in the United States. While working for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, Henry S. Montgomery came up with a unique watch face design to meet the needs of railway professionals. He received a patent in 1920 for his personal design, which varied from other marginal minute designs at the time in three distinct ways. First, the numbers on the dial appeared vertical instead of being slanted or arched, a convention that we still see in many watches today. Second, Montgomery enlarged the five-minute numbers and typically had them appear in red instead of the standard black. Again, this convention can still be seen in some clocks today. Third, the sixth hour received a clear mark on the watch face. Before Montgomery, most pocket watches did not have a clear mark for this hour because of a subdial for the second hand. Montgomery placed the six within this subdial. Lastly, around the outer edge of the dial the seconds were numbered 1 through 60. For instance, this enabled one to know when it was exactly 13-minutes after 2 o'clock because the minute hand would point not only at a marker but also at the number 13. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorBefore accepting his current position, Craig Duling served as an engineer with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Sunnyvale, California. Archives
September 2017
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