The Catalogue

Now you can date your William Bent pocket watch movement.

The catalogue which appears in the tab above is not an official list compiled by William Bent, (how I wish such a list could be found). Instead, it is a list compiled (from my research) primarily as a record of all known William Bent pocket watches and movements sold across the world.

Feel free to use the catalogue as a means of approximating the date of any William Bent movement.

Also please help to maintain the catalogue by informing me of any omissions or errors. It is by no means complete and could be more useful to everyone if we pool our information.

The dates which appear in the catalogue have been taken from hallmarks on the watch cases, but only those whose serial numbers match the movement they contain.

Unfortunately, many gold and silver cases have been sold for scrap (the prices of gold and silver being so high) leaving the watch movements orphaned and often suffering damage in the process.

Some movements have been found married up with a suitably sized case, but the serial numbers do not match. The dates from these cases have not been included in this catalogue.

Why are some serial numbers in the catalogue accompanied with an asterisk?

The majority of William Bent pocket watch movements are of the English Fusee Full-plate Lever design (like the one that is illustrated here). I have included an asterisk (*) in the catalogue to indicate those that vary from this design. These variations will be dealt with in a separate post.

This beautiful example 13392 is typical of the keywind, keyset, fusee full-plate lever design favoured by William Bent. By using the catalogue as a guide, it dates to about 1873.
These images appeared briefly on ebay in 2012.