I write a Newsletter every month for members of my local Studebaker Club. Each month I write a special article about watches. Most of my articles are about South Bend Watches because the Studebaker Family was connected to the South Bend Watch Company. The focus of all of my artilce are directed to people who usually are not watch collectors and have very little knowlegde about them. The following is an article I recently wrote:


I think one of the more interesting aspects about collecting pocket watches is seeing the various types of artwork watchmakers used on their movements. The term for this artwork is called Damaskeening.
Damaskeening comes from the old English word damascening. Damascening is the art of inlaying different metals into one another-- typically, gold or silver into a darkly oxidized steel background to produce intricate patterns similar to niello. The technique of niello is famously attested in prehistoric Greece. The earliest occurrence of damascening in the Aegean, from the Shaft Graves of Mycenae, dates to the latest Middle Bronze Age/Middle Helladic IIIB period (dagger Nu-304). Ultimately of Near Eastern provenance, the technique of inlaying silver/gold was adapted to suit Aegean taste and style.
The art of Damaskeening is the technique of embellishing watch movement plates by using small polishing wheels of ivory or boxwood with an abrasive paste to produce designs in the plates. U. S. Watch Company watchmakers first employed damaskeening between 1868 and 1869. Damaskeening became very popular on American watches by the late 1870’s and watch companies competed fiercely for the beauty of dasmaskeening and used the term generously in all of their ads.
Damaskeening was actually introduced to American watchmakers by a Swiss man named Mr. F. Wilmot who was talented in Fausse Cotes, Cotes de Geneve or Geneva Stripes, which were the European terms for damaskeening. Prior to damaskeening all watch plates were either plain metal or were gilded with gold and or gold paint.
The South Bend Watch Company used several different damaskeening designs in their quest to make watch movements an art form. Some of the examples are quite elaborate while others are somewhat plain. Some look like simple lines. Others are more intricate. Some look like fish scales while others look like a checkerboard. Usually each watch model had it own design. However they would change a design with a different run of the same model.
Damaskeening was an important selling point when a customer came into a jewelry store to buy a new watch. Watch manufacturers usually did not include a case with a watch movement. The customer chose the movement and than chose a case to put it into. Eye appeal was and still is the edge some manufactures rely on.
Today, the interesting phenomenon about damaskeening is that it is not visible to the casual observer. Before you can admire a particular design you have to take the back cover off the watchcase to see it. Most people don’t do that! Not to be left out, watchcase makers sometimes used damaskeening on the inside backs of watchcases.

Reference: Complete Price Guide to Watches by Richard E. Gilbert, Tom Engle, and Cooksey Shugart; and Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia .

Ernie...An important point to note is that most watches were not cased by the manufacturer. A customer would go to a jeweler and pick out a movement and then a case and the jeweler would install the movement in the case. The damaskeening was all about making your movement stand out over your competitors.

Hi Ernie,

you may like to see that...

http://www.rgmwatches.com/engine.html

rgds

Enzo

Roger: Thanks for your input. You are absolutely right about most watches not being cased at the factory. Damaskeening was an important selling point when a customer came into a jewelry store to buy a new watch. Eye appeal was and still is the edge some manufactures rely on.

Enzo: Thank you for sharing the web link. It was very informative. It will be a basis for a follow-up article. Thank you!

My article has not yet gone to print so I was able to add some verbage regarding the fact that movements were not usually cased by the factory.

I corrected my post above to reflect that change.

Ernie you are welcome to use these pictures from a recent post I did here;

Thanks David, those are some really fancy damaskeening. I may use them in a follow up article.