Paul Revere's watch???

[Enzo Temko]

A few years after Paul Revere road through Boston warning the British about our American arms, he might have purchased this watch from Abe Brequet.

Souscription watches are called by this name because they were introduced by means of a publicity brochure in 1797. They were marketed on a subscription basis with a down payment of a quarter of the price of with each order. Designed with a minimum number of parts to make them affordable but still of high quality and capable of accurate timekeeping. Reliable and affordable the souscription watch enjoyed great success and attracted many new clients. Some 700 examples were made, mainly in silver cases. Breguet used the calibre of the souscription watch to make his first tact watches. For some reason the movement is numbered 838 but the secret signature on the dial is 1430.

[BrianS]

Cool watch, but I suspect Paul Revere would have purchased just the movement then hand crafted his own silver case for it..

[pratt]

mr. brequet was living across the pond and then some when good old paul jumped into his 1775 version of a SUV and drove down route 2A to concord to buy some pastries from the local bakery. paul was big on supporting local industries which included local gunsmiths. there is a marker on that route that identifies the spot where he was caught by the fish and chippers. since mr. brequet was living way over in europe, and this was before e-bay, one wonders if someone in waltham did not make the watch and stamp mr. brequet's name on the dial and thus the watch became the first known.......

nice watch.

there have been many appendicies to the revere story, the most interesting is that paul revere was a known drunk and he was chosen because the british would have thought it was old paul up to his drunken midnight rides and therefore would not have taken him seriously.

[skypilot]

I wonder if old Paul ever imagined that the nation would someday have 58 states and that a presidential candidate would go to 57 of them.
That watch is a beautiful piece of work. I wonder just how accurate it was. Gladiator probably has one in that fabulous collection of his.

[BrianS]

Poor old William Dawes and Samuel Prescott.. Nobody remembers them!

[CometHunter]

Poor old William Dawes and Samuel Prescott.. Nobody remembers them!

Yes. There were several brave men AND WOMEN on-call that famous night. It seems good ol' Paulie R. was the only one able to latch onto a decent PR agent!

[BrianS]

Yes. There were several brave men AND WOMEN on-call that famous night. It seems good ol' Paulie R. was the only one able to latch onto a decent PR agent!

Yeah P.R. had a good PR man - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow!