For many years now I have been researching an obscure New Jersey casemaker, H.W. Matalene, who appears to have made custom cases exclusively for Waltham. He made cases for pendant watches, wristwatches and dress pocketwatches in 14K, 18K and platinum, often with precious stones or enamel. He was also a prolific inventor and incorporated several of his patents in the cases he made. He was only in business from around 1912 to 1924 so he just caught the early years of wristwatches, but the accompanying picture of seven wristwatch examples shows a variety of styles, (more so in the ladies watches on the left).

The examples shown span the years 1912 to 1922. The unusual enameled watch in the upper left (10-ligne movement) must have once had a matching gold bracelet. The 1914 and 1917 watches, using an uncataloged high-grade 9-ligne movement, include his patented slide on the edge of the case to release the crown for setting, a feature that also appeared on some men's wristwatches as well as many of his pendant and pocket watches. The 1916 octagonal watch, shown in more detail in THIS THREAD, uses Waltham's extremely small and high grade 7-1/2 ligne movement as does the 1919 watch. The two men's watches on the right, with 6/0 movements, were shown in THIS THREAD, although I now think each is one year earlier than indicated there.

Matalene never signed his cases, but most can be identified by the patent date stamped in the back cover (APR.20'09 or APR.16'12). These patents were for various stem-locking mechanisms to replace the more typical case sleeve. If anyone has an example of his work I would like to add the information (serial numbers, etc.) to my database. This will be a major Bulletin article in the future.

Hi Jerry,
You've got what I had of these but I recently got a WWC signed case that might fit the small round mv't.. Are these all signed Matalene in some way? This case is marked 19 1/2 K White gold, small, engraved cushion shaped and made for a round dial.

I'll hang on to it until you can examine it. I
am impressed that gold can be white at 19 1/2 K!
-Cort

As I mentioned above, Matalene's cases are never signed. All they have are a 3- or 4-digit serial number, a gold mark and usually one of the two patent dates. The interior finish may be polished, dull, brushed or spotted.