What is a “Fusee” Pocket Watch ?
Early clocks were powered by heavy weights attached to long chains. Every day the weight was returned to the top of the clock, and throughout the day gravity pulled the weight down, thereby causing the gears to move. Unfortunately, this only worked if the clock was mounted vertically and there was room for the weights to hang down. The invention of the mainspring, though, enabled clocks to be portable and eventually gave rise to what we call a pocket watch today. One problem with early mainsprings, though, was that as the spring wound down it lost power, and as a result the watch or clock would get slower and slower as the day progressed.
“Fusee” [also called “chain driven”] watches use a very fine chain running from the mainspring barrel to a special truncated cone [the “fusee”] to regulate the force of the spring as it winds down, as shown in the examples below:
As the mainspring unwinds, the chain moves from the top of the fusee to the bottom, thereby increasing the tension on the mainspring. The older fusee watches used a “verge” escapement that, because it is mounted vertically within the watch, required the watch to be very thick. These watches, generally referred to as “verge fusees,” were usually not as accurate as their later counterparts, although there were some notable exceptions such as John Harrison’s famous “No. 4” marine chronometer. Perhaps to make up for this lack of accuracy, verge fusees were almost always works of art, employing intricately engraved and hand pierced balance bridges [or “cocks”] and other ornamentations.
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In the early 1800’s fusee watches began to be made with the newer “lever” escapement which, because they were mounted horizontally instead of vertically, allowed the watches to be thinner. These so-called “lever fusees” were also generally much more accurate as well. As the watches became more accurate timekeepers, however, less emphasis was placed on making them as artistic, and you rarely see much in the way of hand piercing or engraving on the later lever fusee watches.
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