Circular cased verge clock-watch with hour striking and alarm

This gilt-brass watch has only an hour hand so its owner would not have been able to tell the time very precisely. It fits inside a case with a pierced and engraved hinged lid. The dial has an outer chapter ring of Roman hour numerals I-XII with half-hour marks, and an inner ring showing Arabic numbers for hours 13-24. Clock-watches of this type with a stackfreed mechanism (from the German starken feder, 'strong spring') were made in the Bavarian watchmaking centre of Nuremberg in the early 1500s. The stackfreed served to equalise the tension of the mainspring, but the timekeeping ability of the movement was poor. Watches were valued as ornaments, and not for their accuracy. They were suspended from a pendant and were worn on chain round the neck.