HSNY To Celebrate 159th Anniversary With Gala at the Plaza Hotel (March 22, 2025)

Saturday, March 22, 2025

The Horological Society of New York (HSNY), America’s oldest watchmaking guild, founded in 1866, announces today its 159th anniversary Gala, taking place on Saturday, March 22, 2025, at the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York City. This milestone event will bring together top watch brands, horology enthusiasts, industry leaders, and collectors to celebrate the Society’s rich history and its ongoing mission to advance the art and science of horology.

HSNY’s annual Gala is a glamorous evening filled with fine dining, scholarships for watchmaking students, and a live auction showcasing exceptional timepieces. 

The Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom, where dinner will take place.

Celebrating HSNY's 159th anniversary at the Plaza Hotel — one of New York City’s most iconic landmarks — promises to be an unforgettable night. This historic venue, rich with over a century of elegance and grandeur, provides the perfect backdrop for honoring the enduring art and science of horology. The Plaza Hotel is a National Historic Landmark, a New York City Landmark, and is well known for Truman Capote's Black and White Ball, held in 1966. With an overwhelming demand for tickets at previous Galas, the Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom will make it possible to double the number of HSNY members, sponsors, and friends in attendance.

Event Details:

  • Date: Saturday, March 22, 2025

  • Time: 6:00 PM - 11:00 PM

  • Location: The Plaza Hotel, 768 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

  • Dress Code: Black Tie

Tickets for the Gala will be available for purchase on the following schedule:

  • Gold Tier Members: Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 12:00 PM ET

  • Silver Tier Members: Thursday, November 14, 2024, 12:00 PM ET

  • Bronze Tier Members: Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 12:00 PM ET

  • General Public: Thursday, November 21, 2024, 12:00 PM ET

Table reservations (10 seats) are available. Contact info@hs-ny.org for details.

A portion of each Gala ticket sale is tax-deductible and all proceeds from the evening will support HSNY’s educational initiatives, including scholarships for aspiring watchmakers and public outreach programs.

HSNY Gala, 2024

ABOUT THE HOROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

Founded in 1866, the Horological Society of New York (HSNY) is one of the oldest continuously operating horological associations in the world. Today, HSNY is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art and science of horology through education. Members are a diverse mix of watchmakers, clockmakers, executives, journalists, auctioneers, historians, salespeople and collectors, reflecting the rich nature of horology in New York City and around the world. http://hs-ny.org

Reading Time at HSNY: Our Original Library

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our head librarian, Miranda Marraccini.

Regular readers of this column probably know all about our library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), which we officially opened only two years ago. We unveiled a gilded sign! We cut a ribbon with giant scissors! It was a big deal. But did you know that HSNY has always had a library? Early members viewed books as essential to their work and made the book collection a priority from the start. As with watchmaking, library practices of the 19th century have a lot in common with those of today.

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HSNY was founded in March 1866 by a group of German immigrants. Known as the Deutscher Uhrmacher Verein (German Watchmakers’ Society), it included only working watchmakers. Members paid into a fund that would support them if they were unable to work.

A history written in 1916 reports that the Society had a “technical library” within a few years of its founding. Image 1 shows an early library stamp, in blue, that marks a book called “The Watchmakers’ Library” as property of the New Yorker Urmacher Verein–a name we used from 1887 until around 1916. The German-style tulip ornament and oval shape lend the stamp a bit of decorative flair.

In our archives, a card printed around 1887 in German mentions that the Society keeps a “specialized library…open at no charge to all members…one of the most complete in the German language. It also contains almost all the more recently published technical literature in the English language and is being added to regularly” (images 2 and 3). 

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Since most members still spoke German as a primary language at this time, and all meetings were conducted in German, the Society took pains to collect books that would be helpful and readable. But the reference on this card to recent literature in English suggests that things were starting to change. By 1930, English was the primary language of the newly rebranded Horological Society of New York.

Other, sporadic documentation shows the library continued to grow and evolve in the following decades: by 1891, HSNY boasted $365 in books and periodicals, equivalent to around $12,000 or $13,000 in today’s money. In 1901 a member donated a collection of 215 technical books.

Below are lists of books in our library from the 1940s (image 4) and the 1960s (image 5). We have multiple copies of these lists in our archives, which were frequently added to and annotated. Sometimes a book was marked as missing or damaged or restricted from circulation because of its delicate condition.

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In the mid-20th century, HSNY’s books were mostly technical. Some example titles from these lists are: Moritz Immisch, “Prize Essay on the Balance Spring” (1872); R. H. Playtner, “An Analysis of the Lever Escapement” (1895); and Walter Kleinlein, “Rules and Practice for Adjusting Watches” (1920). Later on, the library added more modern titles including B. Humbert, “The Chronograph, its Mechanism and Repair (1953), and multiple books about newer technologies including F. Hope-Jones, “Electrical Timekeeping” (1949).

During most of HSNY’s history, until the last few years, the position of librarian was filled by a volunteer member. Although we have no record of how the librarian chose new books or how they organized the collection, a notice in 1955 bragged about having “library of congress index cards,” a system for cataloging we still use today (although we now use an online catalog rather than physical cards).

Where were the books stored? The library was never stationary–it moved through different rented rooms, mostly in hotels, just as the meeting location for the Society changed every year or two. HSNY always strived for convenience for members, which meant meeting them where they worked. Some locations were in lower Manhattan and later in Midtown as the center of the jewelry trade shifted from Maiden Lane to 47th Street. The library was open for use only on days when members were having a meeting, which was once a month. Members could check out books, except during the summer. 

You can see the evidence for the library’s continued relevance to members in our monthly newsletter, “The Horologist’s Loupe.” This HSNY publication has been going since 1938 and is still sent out every month, although now by email. (You can access all past issues on our website.) A quotation from the May 1966 edition of “The Horologist’s Loupe” intones: “This is YOUR library and it is here to help you with any problems.” Images 6 and 7, from the October 1964 and March 1968 issues respectively, remind readers of both the “precious” and “important” nature of the library and of its rules. 

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Returning library books was a problem from the start. Even I, as a librarian, struggle with this today–sorry, New York Public Library, I am a serial offender! In “The Horologist’s Loupe,” almost every issue urges members to return library materials. For example, in May 1964: “Our Librarian would like to remind all members who borrowed books that these have to be returned at the following meeting. A fine of 25 cents to $1.00 will be charged for books kept longer than 1 month, depending on the type and age of the book…[Books] are for your benefit kept in the safe, but readily available on request.” 

We no longer keep our books in a safe, although I can assure you they are safe. More excitingly, we have just begun lending out books again to HSNY members! If you’re an active member in good standing, you can now check out up to four books at a time by visiting our library in New York, and either return them in person, or mail them back when you’re done. There are no late fees!

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Of course we know that when we lend out books, they don’t always come back exactly the same as when they left. Many of you know that I’m obsessed with readers’ marks in books. Not in a disapproving, punitive way–in fact, I love finding evidence of how readers loved these books, sometimes until they were falling apart. I think it shows how the book lived, its uses in the workshop or at home, and how people valued it. 

For example, the first inscription in image 8 reads: “from B. Mellenhoff to Max, 3/13/44.” Benjamin Mellenhoff was President of the Horological Society in 1936-1937. Max Epstein was an instructor at the Bulova School and a frequent lecturer. In the second inscription you can see what happened 11 years later. Mrs. Max Epstein donated the book, “Modern Watch Repairing and Adjusting,” to the Horological Society in memory of her beloved husband in March 1955. She knew how much the Society meant to Max, and wanted his legacy to be the continued support of other watchmakers, in this case through the library collection.

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Image 9 shows some other stamps and inscriptions in our books. Henry Fried, who wrote the message in cursive at the center top of the image, was an HSNY president in the 1940s and 50s who authored 14 books on watchmaking and taught in the New York City public schools. In a copy of his own book, “The Watch Repairer’s Manual” he insisted: “May this remain in circulation for a long time” (emphasis his). And it has! Readers can still access Fried’s book in our library in 2024, along with thousands of others, and will be able to continue to read it into its second century.

For some time between the 1960s and the 1990s, our books resided at the Bulova School in Queens, NY. When the school closed, HSNY member and former Trustee and Treasurer Charles Solomon rushed over with a van to save the books from being thrown out.

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Solomon’s beautiful Riverside Memorial Chapel served as the Society’s meeting place from 1995 through 2016. Image 10 is a picture of the books that were stored in a closet at the chapel. You can see that in addition to the older books, a number of more recent volumes have joined, including a lot of Bulova technical manuals and material on repairing quartz watches.

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Along with our other librarian, St John Karp, I’ve been reconstructing HSNY’s original library. We’ve found more than 100 books from the original lists so far. You can see some in the library in image 11, as well as in the header image of this article, with their original numbered labels on the spine. If you ever find a book with one of our stamps out in the wild, please let us know, because we’d love to know more about our history!

Since this article focused on HSNY’s original library, I won’t go into detail about everything that’s happened since Fortunat Mueller-Maerki donated his massive collection to HSNY a few years ago. We’ve grown into a world-class research library with reference services, open to the public, and we’ve helped everyone from watchmaking students to novelists to people researching family heirlooms. You can learn about the start of this new era in the first post I wrote for this site back in 2022, but so much has happened since then that I may have to write a Part Two of this article. As a librarian, I feel that I’m carrying on a practical, tangible legacy. I try to keep the knowledge in circulation, as Henry Fried would say–not just the physical books, but what they represent to watchmakers of the past and future. 

HSNY Unveils "The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko" Exhibit

On Display Through December 2024 

The Horological Society of New York (HSNY), America’s oldest watchmaking guild, founded in 1866, announces today the opening of its 2024 exhibit, "The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko". This unique exhibit offers a fascinating journey through the evolution, artistry, and intricate craftsmanship of Japanese timekeeping through the lens of Seiko and Grand Seiko with a collection that spans centuries.

Seiko Quartz Astron 35SQ (1969)

"The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko" exhibit features specially curated timepieces that have never left The Seiko Museum Ginza until now, beginning with wadokei from the early 19th century to the first Japanese wristwatch (Seikosha Laurel), the world’s first watch that used a quartz crystal (Seiko Quartz Astron), and Grand Seiko’s first model (Grand Seiko 3180).

Now on display at HSNY’s Jost Bürgi Research Library, the exhibit allows visitors the rare opportunity to explore the intricate designs and technological advancements that helped put Japan on the horological map, including revolutionary railroad watches, self-winding chronographs, Olympic timers, the first wristwatch with an audio recording function, and of course, Spring Drive.

Brass Inro Wadokei (early 19th century)

Timepieces on display were carefully hand-delivered from their permanent home at The Seiko Museum Ginza, a six-story time capsule showcasing archives from one of Japan’s most important watch brands. Additional timepieces from the personal collection of Joseph Kirk, Brand Curator and Director of Marketing, Grand Seiko Corporation of America, complete the 25-item exhibit. This marks the first time many of the timepieces have been on loan. 

Seikosha Laurel (1913)

Grand Seiko 3180 (1960)

“Our aim with "The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko" exhibit is to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the evolution of these famous brands,” said Nicholas Manousos, HSNY Executive Director. “We wish to thank our friends at Seiko and Grand Seiko for entrusting us with the care of their treasures and for helping us to meet our mission of advancing the art and science of horology.”

"The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko" catalog

"The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko" exhibit is complemented by a fully illustrated catalog, which includes original photography by Atom Moore and a preface by Brice Le Troadec, President, Grand Seiko Corporation of America, and Global Strategy Officer, Seiko Watch Corporation. The print catalog is available for purchase in-person and online, and is available for free digitally on the HSNY website.

"The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko" is open to the public Monday through Friday from 10AM to 5PM. Admission is free. HSNY is located at 20 West 44th Street, Suite 501, New York, NY 10036. Learn more at https://hs-ny.org/exhibits.

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ABOUT THE HOROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

Founded in 1866, the Horological Society of New York (HSNY) is one of the oldest continuously operating horological associations in the world. Today, HSNY is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art and science of horology through education. Members are a diverse mix of watchmakers, clockmakers, executives, journalists, auctioneers, historians, salespeople and collectors, reflecting the rich nature of horology in New York City and around the world.

http://hs-ny.org

Reading Time at HSNY: The Clockmaker in the Library With the Winding Key

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarian, Miranda Marraccini.

Happy Horror-ological Halloween! Last year in honor of this spooky season I wrote about watches that kill, uncanny automata, and goblins of Swiss watchmaking. I featured a recent novel called “Death Watch,” in which a watch that might just be capable of severing its wearer’s wrist becomes the “must-have accessory for end-time capitalism.”

This year I’m focusing on other mystery novels and thrillers in our library collection at the Horological Society of New York–which includes fiction! Not long ago, I was given a gift of an Author Clock, which displays the time using different literary quotations for each minute of the day. For instance, a line from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” that appears on the face of the clock at 3 p.m. reads: “At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned.” 

Perusing the quotations as the Author Clock cycled through them reminded me that accurate timekeeping is especially important in mystery or crime novels, since witnesses and investigators often need to reconstruct a series of fatal events. For instance, in the Agatha Christie book below, a chapter begins: “To use police terms: at 2:59 P.M on September 9th, I was proceeding along Wilbraham Crescent in a westerly direction.”

Many adults who come into the library ask me fondly if we have mystery classics from their childhood like the first Nancy Drew novel, “The Secret of the Old Clock”–and we do! In the story, Nancy, the intrepid daughter of a criminal defense attorney, tries to do a good deed by finding a missing will whose contents will aid a deserving family. She pursues her investigative aim, and some thieves who get involved later, through a combination of quick thinking and even quicker driving. 

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To reveal the location of the missing will would not be in the spirit of mystery writing, but suffice it to say it involves a clock of this description: an “old fashioned mantel clock…it had a square face and the top was ornamented with a crescent.” We have a few editions, but our 1950s-era copy has a charming cover (image 1) showing one rendering of the mantel clock. In this version, the clock is lying in tall grass with its dial taken off, but you can see it better in the 1987 edition’s cover (image 2). 

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The flyleaf inside the 1950s edition contains the signature of one Sandra Hoksch, who received it for Christmas in 1955. Sandra, or one of the book’s later owners, carefully marked every book in the series she had read (image 3). I love to find readers’ marks in books, and I think of the people who wrote in our books like ghosts on the page, reading over our shoulders, waiting for our laugh, our scream of delight or terror. Sandra might not be a literal ghost, and if she sees this, I encourage her to contact us! But either way, her childhood note connects her materially to our 21st-century library and its readers.

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At the time of its original publication, the boy-equivalent of Nancy was of course the Hardy Boys. One Hardy Boys mystery in our collection at HSNY is “While the Clock Ticked,” originally published 1932. The climax of the story involves a time bomb attached to a grandfather clock. The scene makes use of the dramatic tension of the “inexorable swinging of the clock’s pendulum as the minutes ticked by.” Our copy, the revised 1962 edition, deploys the clock scene right on the cover (image 4). 

Sometimes stopped clocks in mystery novels are evidence of an event happening at a precise time, like someone’s death. In the first few pages of “The Clocks,” by the inimitable Agatha Christie, secretary Sheila Webb is about to discover a dead body: “Sheila started violently as there was a whir and a click above her head, and from a wooden carved clock on the wall a cuckoo sprang out through a little door and announced loudly and definitely: Cuckoo, Cuckoo, Cuckoo! The harsh note seemed almost menacing.” The clock sounds a note of foreboding in the novel’s first few pages.

What’s more mysterious is that the room is filled with “a profusion of clocks–a grandfather…a Dresden china clock…a silver carriage clock…a small fancy gilt clock” and “a faded leather travelling clock, with ROSEMARY in worn gilt letters across the corner.” All these clocks are stopped at 4:13, and what’s even MORE baffling is that the home’s owner denies that the clocks, except for the cuckoo clock, are hers. Why are there so many clocks? And why are they all showing the same time? And by the way, who is the dead man in a pool of blood behind the sofa? 

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In this mystery, detective Hercule Poirot tries to find out what is going on from the comfort of his armchair, while other investigators do the actual work of investigating. (To be fair, he takes this relaxed approach as a result of a challenge from another character.)

The cover art on our copy (image 5) takes advantage of the cuckoo clock’s “menacing” call by portraying it with a cuckoo bird in the form of a skull. The illustration references not only the death in the story, but the historical memento mori shapes of watches over time, including skulls. Images 6 and 7, from the book “500 Years, 100 Watches,” show a skull watch made by Jean Rousseau around 1650. Its movement is crammed into the “cranial cavity,” as the text puts it, while opening its toothy grin reveals the dial between its jaws. A 400-year-old watch with a movement for a brain that speaks the time out of its dead metal mouth. It might remind you of the inevitability of death, and it definitely knows when you’re going to die.

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For a more recent mystery read, why not try “Just Killing Time,” by Julianne Holmes, the first in a clock-themed series? How could you resist with this blurb on the back cover: “Ruth Clagan may be an expert clockmaker, but she has always had a tendency to lose track of time. And when trying to solve a murder, every second counts…” 

Ruth returns home after her grandfather’s death. He ran a small-town New England clock shop, the Cog & Sprocket, before being killed in an apparent robbery. Now Ruth must reconstruct what happened to him while settling into her new role as heir to the shop. Luckily, she’s a horologist and clockmaker herself, so she’s “comforted and inspired” by the cluttered shop, with its “clock guts everywhere” and “smell that combined lemon oil, dust, mothballs and motor grease.” And she has a sassy shop cat, Bezel, to aid her investigations.

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If you’re hooked already, we’ve just added two sequels to our library, titled “Clock and Dagger” and “Chime and Punishment.” As you may have guessed from the titles, horological puns are a delightfully heavy component of Holmes’ writing: Ruth is “wound up”; she won’t stop until the killer is “serving time”; she’ll have to kick into “high gear” to solve the case. You can see all three books in the series in image 8; importantly for cat people like me, all of the covers feature a cat amongst the steampunk-esque gears and tools.

Not every crime is a murder, of course. I’ll leave you with the infamous tale of the Queen, the real horological heist that plays a part in the Allen Kurzweil novel “The Grand Complication.” This 2016 Forbes piece about the watch’s story begins “It seems like something out of a Sherlock Holmes novel…” That couldn’t be more accurate.

Celebrated horologist Abraham-Louis Breguet created the watch, called No. 160, for Marie Antoinette in 1783, but it wasn’t finished for 44 years after its initial commission. With 23 complications, made mostly of gold and covered in jewels, it was an extraordinarily expensive watch of extraordinary ingenuity. It passed through the collection of David Salomons before ending up in the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, whence it was stolen by an expert jewel thief in 1983, along with over 100 other rare timepieces.

That’s where the story stood when Kurzweil published “The Grand Complication” in 2001. The Queen, along with dozens of other pieces, was missing, a legendary work of art visible only in images and records. In the novel, a private collector hires Alexander Short, “a stylish young reference librarian of arcane interests” to find a missing object that turns out to be…you guessed it. Horology may be the least arcane thing in this novel, which also includes “quirky colleagues, erotic pop-ups, deviant passions, and miraculous examples of theft,” according to the publisher.

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I enjoyed the book’s horological easter eggs, among them a tiny escape wheel illustration that appears between sections of text that is a rendering of one within the movement of the watch in question. As you flip through the book, the wheel turns.

In real life, Swatch group CEO Nicolas G. Hayek commissioned a period-perfect working replica of the famous timepiece in 2005, and right around the time that replica was finished a few years later, the stolen original resurfaced. That complicated story is one told in John Biggs’ nonfiction work “Marie Antoinette's Watch: Adultery, Larceny and Perpetual Motion.” This book is the only one in this article to contain crime scene photos (image 9), for the true crime aficionados among you! If you have a favorite horological mystery novel, please let us know so that we can add it to the library collection. 

Time shows up in fiction in a lot of ways–time travel being one of the most common. People often have a desire to alter things that already happened, to see if they could get something right if they could just do it one more time. In real life, as in crime novels, we can’t go back. Time might seem to shrink and stretch when we’re affected by strong emotions, and yet it relentlessly ticks on, no matter whose heart is beating out its final rhythm, no matter whose body lies cold on the floor.

Upcoming Lecture: Krayon: Artistic and Technical Creations

PLEASE NOTE OCTOBER’S LECTURE WILL BEGIN AT 6PM ET.

Rémi Maillat, Founder, Krayon (Neuchâtel, Switzerland)
October 7, 2024

We all depend on the sun rising and setting each day and generally know the times it does so. But determining those times with a mechanical watch is complicated. With a deep understanding of that issue, Rémi Maillat, Founder of Krayon, has invented a mechanical timepiece that can display sunrise and sunset times nearly anywhere in the world.

At the October 2024 lecture of the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), Maillat will offer a deep dive into the brand, unveiling the complexity behind their timepieces. Maillat will explore not only the mathematical and mechanical aspects but also the astronomical implications embedded in what appear to be simple designs. In addition, Maillat will highlight the artistic importance that remains at the heart of all Krayon creations.

*Doors open at 5:30 PM ET, lecture to begin at 6 PM ET. RSVP is required.

** The lecture video will be available to members immediately, and to the general public following a two-month delay.

Upcoming Lecture: The Trials and Tribulations of Resurrecting a Family Watch Company

PLEASE NOTE SEPTEMBER’S LECTURE WILL BEGIN AT 6PM ET.

Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, (4th) Managing Director, Fears Watch Company (Bristol, UK)
September 9, 2024

What does it take to bring an old family watch brand back to life? From the planning, research and trademarking to working out how to actually make the watches, there are many aspects to consider. At the September 2024 lecture of the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, (4th) Managing Director of the Fears Watch Company will discuss how three British watch companies were restarted by a member of the founding family in the past decade: Duckworth Prestex, Fears and Vertex.

*Doors open at 5:30 PM ET, lecture to begin at 6 PM ET. RSVP is required.

** The lecture video will be available to members immediately, and to the general public following a two-month delay.

Reading Time at HSNY: Watch Your Tongue!

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarian, Miranda Marraccini.

Wie spaet ist es? Vad är klockan? Horas, minutos y segundos. Do you feel like you stumbled into a Duolingo nightmare without warning? Don’t worry. I began with the phrases above to give you an idea of the quiet babble that takes place every day among the books in our library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY). 

Since starting in my role here more than two years ago, I’ve understood the collection to be deeply multilingual. Every day I learn more words that help me find books and assist researchers: Kuckucksuhren, or cuckoo clocks in German. Orologi da polso, or wristwatches in Italian. 

However, I’ve never undertaken a complete survey of the collection before, partly because, for the first part of my time here, we were still deep in the task of cataloging our books. Now that that work is largely done, I can use our new library catalog to find books by language of publication–and I encourage you to do it too! The advanced search function will help you filter the collection by language, as well as other options like subject and date range.

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My survey shows that HSNY boasts books and periodicals in at least 28 languages. I say “at least” because this accounting includes only cataloged materials and might be missing some of our multilingual ephemera–things like museum brochures, postcards, and parts manuals. Many books also include more than one language, including dictionaries for watchmakers that tell you what parts are called in different tongues, like the directly titled “Wie heißt das Teil?” (“What is the name of the part?”), pictured in image 1. Did you know that a mainspring-releasing pinion is called a rocchetto di disimpegno della molla in Italian? You can thank me for that tasty morsel of trivia for use at your next social gathering!

Sometimes one library catalog record leads to many volumes of reading material–like this one for “Brasil relojoeiro e joalheiro,” a monthly magazine on watchmaking and jewelry published in São Paulo. As you can see, we have over 40 years of this publication in our collection! Image 2 shows an advertisement for the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and image 3 is one for the Bulova Accutron, both from 1964 issues. The Fifty Fathoms is the watch preferred by “top athletes on high climbs or at great depths,” while the Accutron is of course “the only electronic watch in the world.” (As a note, please write in if you have corrections to any of these translations, since I’m personally not as much of a polyglot as our collection is!)

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Image 4 is a cover from February 1976, advertising Seiko. Interestingly, the watch indicators in the image show the day as both “Sun” for Sunday, in English, and “Dom” for Domingo, in Portuguese (conveniently spelled the same in Spanish). This points to a multilingual watch market in 1970s Brazil, in which wearers might prefer days in English, Portuguese, or another language. In image 5, a person’s hand, seemingly made out of titanium, advertises a titanium Omega Seamaster model available in 1983. This watch “comes from another world!” There’s some visual overlap between the space-age futurism of the Accutron and Seamaster advertisements. Being associated with outer space is eternally cool when it comes to watches–from the Speedmaster to the MoonSwatch.

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Portuguese literature, from either Brazil or Portugal, is not heavily represented at HSNY, though these aren’t our only Portuguese volumes. Unsurprisingly, among our books, English is the most common language, with about half of the collection made up of English language volumes. After that, it’s German, which also makes sense, given that the donor who built our collection, and who’s responsible for its incredible diversity, is a native German speaker–Fortunat Mueller-Maerki. German makes up about a quarter of the book collection, while French is slightly less, about a fifth. Nothing shocking so far: since much of the watchmaking industry continues to be based in Switzerland, many books by and about watchmakers are written in German and French.

I wish I had the space in this article to highlight books in every language in our collection, including our substantial holdings in Italian and Dutch. I don’t, so I’m just going to choose some that surprised or intrigued me, and you can come into the library for the rest. I was pleased to discover books in our collection in Catalan, Estonian, Indonesian, and Slovene. Our lone Catalan volume, “Els Rellotges Públics de Mallorca” by Josep Lluís Forteza Pomar, discusses public clocks in Mallorca, an island off Spain that uses a Catalan dialect as one of its languages. 

A book written in the local language by a local author, in this case published by a local government council, helps researchers gain a more authentic understanding of the subject. Image 6, for example, shows a public clock in Mallorca that most tourists would probably overlook, since it adorns the façade of a care facility. The smaller inset photos, which include dates and measurements, show inaccessible details of the movement like the escapement and the control dial (with delicate Breguet hands.)

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Several of our items in languages that are less common in the context of our collection help us to understand and visualize museum exhibitions or regional manufacturing histories. An article in Slovene illustrates a display of clocks in Ljubljana, the capital city. Clocks of the Ottoman empire are covered in Turkish. Books in Russian cover horological treasures of the Kremlin, while books in Japanese focus on both 20th-century military watches and Edo-period wadokei (two of which we currently have on display at HSNY). The gorgeous flower pot clock in image 7 comes from a book whose title translates to “Timepieces Collected by Qing Emperors in the Palace Museum.” According to the caption, it was made in about 1780 by Timothy Williamson in the UK, and includes multiple moving automata, including trembling petals.

A book in Romanian, by Volker Wollmann, covers “Pre-industrial and Industrial Heritage in Romania” and is our only volume about that country. Wollmann includes not only public clocks, but also lighthouses, fountains, wells, and other forms of public architecture. 

Image 8

One of my favorite photos in the book shows a detail of seven allegorical figures from the famous 17th-century Sighișoara Clock Tower (image 8). Each figure represents not only a day of the week, but also an ancient god and a specific metal noted by an alchemical symbol. For instance, the first figure at top left, Monday, represents Artemis, with the moon symbol also denoting the metal silver.

Other books, of course, are simple translations or not topically related to the country in which the language is spoken, like a book about Junghans in Estonian, an elementary watchmaking textbook in Indonesian, or a book about chamber clocks in Croatian. It’s important to have these books in our library too–not every Danish speaker only wants to know about watchmaking in Denmark. Sometimes, if you’re an aspiring urmager, you just need to sit down with a thorough håndbog and get to work!

One result of my survey has been a new determination to expand our multilingual holdings. Our assistant librarian, St John Karp, an Esperanto enthusiast, has just acquired our first two books in that language. “La 13 Horloĝoj” (“The 13 Clocks”) is a translation of a strange fairy tale originally written by James Thurber, also in our library in English. “La Kalendaro tra la Tempo, tra la Spaco” (“The Calendar through Time, through Space”) was written in Esperanto by André Cherpillod. So, Esperantists unite! You will now be able to enjoy our library in your preferred tongue.

While English continues to be the most-used language for our patrons, we want to make sure we truly have something for everyone, and that means books and periodicals in many tongues. Curious about kellosepät? Doing a deep dive into dawne zegary? We hope you’ll use our resources, and leave our library with an enhanced appreciation of horology’s global reach and cross-cultural capacity.

HSNY Establishes a Partnership With the Horopedia Foundation

Partnering with the first online video encyclopedia on watchmaking

The Horological Society of New York (HSNY), America’s first watchmaking guild, founded in 1866, announces today a partnership with the Horopedia Foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland. Horopedia Foundation becomes HSNY’s fifth nonprofit ally since the start of the Society’s partnership program in 2021. 

Carolina Navarro, HSNY’s Deputy Director, meets with horologist and philanthropist Philippe Dufour during Geneva Watch Days 2024. Dufour serves as President of the Horopedia Foundation.

Horopedia Foundation governs Horopedia.org, the first online video encyclopedia on watchmaking. The platform was launched in 2022 and quickly gathered unanimous support within the community, standing out as a comprehensive source of intelligence for the entire horological ecosystem and showcasing an innovative approach to preserving and sharing watchmaking expertise. The Foundation Council is composed of Philippe Dufour (President), Dr. Helmut Crott, André Colard, and Marc André Deschoux.

Horopedia.org meticulously covers all facets of the horological industry in French, English, and German, and offers detailed definitions of tools and complications, 3D images of movements, and thorough video explanations of component production, their history, and functions in a watch. To date, the website features nearly 900 pages with detailed definitions of watchmaking terms and historical anecdotes about significant horological inventions.

“We are thrilled to draw some bridges with like-minded people defending and educating all the crafts behind the watchmaking,” said Marc André Deschoux, Founder of the Horopedia Foundation. “Together, we can enhance the reach and impact of our efforts to document and celebrate the rich history of timekeeping. We are eager to embark on this journey with HSNY and to see the profound influence our combined efforts will have on the global horological community.”

Learn more about the Horological Society of New York here.
Learn more about the Horopedia Foundation here.

HSNY Traveling Education Announcement, July/August 2024

Discover what makes a watch tick with a hands-on course taught by the Horological Society of New York's staff of professional watchmakers. Students work on a mechanical watch movement, studying the movement mechanics, gear train, and winding and setting works. No previous experience is required for this four-hour course. Learn more at https://hs-ny.org/nyc-education.

Welcoming New HSNY Members, June 2024

HSNY would like to welcome the following new members. It is only with our members' support that we are able to continue flourishing as America's oldest watchmaking guild and advancing the art and science of horology every day. 

SILVER

  • Eugene Cipriano, NY

BRONZE

  • Alex Harrell, CA

  • Andre Pinho, NJ

  • Andrew Ringeisen, NJ

  • Anthony Hagale, TX

  • Catherine Parson, VA

  • Cesar Hassan, FL

  • Chris Saari, CA

  • Christopher Vendrell, NY

  • Dave Cooper, CO

  • Edwin Castro Cordero, Puerto Rico

  • Emad Musharbash, TX

  • Erika Ratini, PA

  • Gerald Terela, NY

  • Jason Howe, FL

  • Jeffrey Jacob, NJ

  • Joan Plana Nadal, NY

  • John Watts, CA

  • Mark D. Vitacco, NC

  • Michael Everman, CA

  • Mitchell Terk, FL

  • Paul Fojas, CA

  • Paul Schwarzbaum, MI

  • Philip Golia, CT

  • Richard Leahy, CA

  • Rodrigo Menezes, NY

  • Salim Westvind, NY

  • Seref Cinar Ozenc, Canada

  • Steven Jacob, CT

  • Stuart Davidson, NH

  • Sylvie Bello, NY

  • Thierry Pradines, NY

  • Wilhelm Rosenberg, NY

Welcoming New HSNY Members, May 2024

HSNY would like to welcome the following new members. It is only with our members' support that we are able to continue flourishing as America's oldest watchmaking guild and advancing the art and science of horology every day. 

GOLD

  • Fatih Taskiran, NY

  • Matthew Connor, MD

  • Michael Ansman, NY

  • Rupa Dainer, MD

SILVER

  • Mark Shasha, NJ

  • Michael Ansman, NY

  • Peter Snavely, OH

  • Steve Gray, TX

  • Vikram Iyer, CA

BRONZE

  • Alfredo Sanchez Cruz, Puerto Rico

  • Andrew Bingham, WA

  • Andrew Crisford, England

  • Antonin Couturier, NY

  • Apostolos Stefanopoulos, NY

  • Brandon Kutchera, CT

  • Brian Hernandez Haffner, France

  • Calder Smith-Montross, RI

  • Christopher George, MA

  • Eric Wilson, TX

  • Fabrizio Bruno, Australia

  • Frankie Ford, NY

  • Gavin Berky, CT

  • James Maccarone, RI

  • Jeffrey Totaro, PA

  • Joshua Matushin, MN

  • Kent Erickson, NV

  • Kristopher Nabors, MD

  • Lee Margolis, NY

  • Matt Schiller, MD

  • Patrick Bedard, NH

  • Peter Spielmann, NY

  • Recarlo Applewhite, MD

  • Solomon Garber, NY

  • Tim Brown, NJ

  • William George, MS

HSNY Hires New Assistant Librarian, St John Karp

The Horological Society of New York (HSNY) announces the appointment of St John Karp as Assistant Librarian. Karp joins HSNY full-time following an internship during the final semester of his Master of Science in Library and Information Science degree at the Pratt Institute. He brings his skills in archival processing, cataloging, and research assistance to HSNY’s Jost Bürgi Research Library, which serves as a rich resource for horological researchers and enthusiasts worldwide.

Formerly, he worked in other archival roles including at the American Numismatic Society, and in his previous career, he was a software developer. His hobbies include Esperanto, B-movies, and admiring other people’s shelving. Please join us in giving Karp a warm welcome to our team!

Reading Time at HSNY: Split Seconds and Photo Finishes at the Olympics

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarian, Miranda Marraccini.

Will you be watching the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games starting in Paris next month? I’ve always been an Olympics superfan, though I’m not sure why. Something about the international display of camaraderie, or perhaps the way the games inspire rabid excitement about sports most people don’t pay any attention to in the intervening two years–curling, trampolining, handball, and more. I’ve often found myself standing up in front of the screen at home, fists clenched, screaming as if my life depended on the outcome of a canoe slalom race.

I’m getting to the horology part. The outcome of many sports competitions depends on timing. How do we know who was the fastest, especially in cases where not everyone is competing at the same time, or when the outcome is very, very close? In ancient Greece, where the Olympics originated, timing was imprecise, at best, and relied on sundials and water clocks, as well as the movements of the stars. Thus, most ancient Olympic races, whether in a chariot or on foot, were simply decided by carefully watching the finish line.

With the initiation of the modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens, so began the implementation of precise timekeeping at the Olympics. Technicians used stopwatches to time events, notably the Heuer Mikrograph, invented in 1916. As this “Europa Star” article reports, watch companies understood early in the 20th century that being associated with the Olympics brought prestige, and a reputation for precision, to the brand. They began to use Olympic sports in their marketing campaigns.

Image 1

Sometimes, even with close observance and stopwatches, it was impossible to tell who crossed the finish line first. So Olympic timekeepers incorporated cameras capable of making that determination where the human eye failed–after they developed the film, of course. In 1932, the “photo finish” was born.

According to a “Popular Science” article from 1933, the system consisted of three parts: a starting pistol, a motion picture camera recording 128 frames per second, and an electric tuning fork clock. The camera recorded contestants finishing and, simultaneously, the elapsed time on the clock to the hundredth of a second. In image 1, you can see an example of a photo finish output in 1932; in image 2, a 1980s version that uses a quartz clock. The finish time is recorded when the runner’s torso crosses the line. Both of these images are from a book called “Coliseum ‘32-’84,” discussed below.

Image 2

For the next several months, in our library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), we’ll be hosting a triumph of Olympic timing, the Seiko “Olympic Timer” stopwatch. As the name implies, Seiko developed this watch for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. From the moment Japan was chosen to host the Games, Seiko was campaigning for the role of official timer, which necessitated some innovation from the company.

Seiko used a heart-shaped cam for the start and stop mechanism in its new “Olympic Timer,” which reduced mechanical errors and improved precision so that the deviation would not exceed a tenth of a second after hours of repeated use. Ultimately, Seiko succeeded in their attempt to time the Tokyo Olympics, providing 1,278 timing instruments and 172 staff members to support the Games, enhancing the company’s international reputation.

Building on the aura of the Games, Seiko continued using the model name “Olympic Timer” for stopwatches manufactured after the Olympics, including the two currently on display at HSNY, made in 1965 and 1967. Image 3, the 1965 monopusher, indicates time to the tenth of a second on the main dial and times 15-minute intervals on the sub-dial. The 1967 model (images 4 and 5) adds a second pusher to separate start/stop and reset functions. Both are part of a new exhibit, “The Evolution of Seiko and Grand Seiko,” now on display until December 2024. 

Image 3 (Photo by Atom Moore)

Image 4 (Photo by Atom Moore)

Image 5 (Photo by Atom Moore)

While Seiko has timed several Olympic Games, most recently in 2002 in Salt Lake City, it has mostly been Swiss companies including Longines and Heuer (now TAG Heuer) who have filled the role. Omega has been the brand most closely associated with Olympic timing since it provided 30 pocket watch chronographs for the 1932 Los Angeles Games; Omega will be timing the Games in Paris next month, its 31st time in the role of Official Timekeeper. Its photo finish camera can record 10,000 images per second at the finish line–no darkroom required!

A related Olympic curiosity in our collection is a book called “Coliseum ‘32-’84: Ars et Scientia temporis mensurae” (the Latin, included presumably for fanciness, translates to “the art and science of time measurement”). The Coliseum in question is the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which hosted the Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984. And with the return of the Olympics to Los Angeles in 2028, it will be the first stadium to host the Olympics three times.

I call it a curiosity because the book, printed in three columns in French, English, and German, is full of interesting, grandiose passages like: “Sports and timing, especially in Olympics, are natural partners, since both were born on the slopes of Mount Olympus–thus the world’s elite of Olympic and international sports are judged in the most impartial manner possible: by Cronus–the God of Time himself.” The book tries to evoke the imagined classical splendor of the ancient Olympics, while illustrating modern advances in precision timing in detail.

Image 6 shows a spread from the book depicting the Lemania 1130, a 24-ligne movement used in the Omega chronographs that timed the 1932 Olympics. The book also covers other equipment like starting pistols and blocks, which are part of a false-start prevention system that can disqualify an athlete who begins before the gun fires (or in modern races, before the electronic signal).

Image 6

Image 7 gives a sense of the range of timing devices and personnel deployed at the 1984 Games. In the smaller images, you can spot video cameras, still cameras, computers, and technicians. The text explains that the timing devices comprised 12 tons of material and were valued at 2.3 million francs.

Image 7

If you’re looking at the equipment and thinking it looks antiquated, you’re right. Even since 1984, we’ve come a long way. In 2012 the Omega “Quantum Timer” made timekeeping precise to the millionth of a second! In researching this article, I found there was a lot more about Olympic timing still to learn, so I’ve added two books to the collection that I hope you’ll ask for if you visit the library: an Omega book titled “Great Olympic Moments in Time” and a humorous memoir called “Splitting the Second: My Wacky Business in Olympic and Sports Timing,” by Alex Cheng.

So when you’re watching Katie Ledecky hit the wall at the end of the 800 meter freestyle, wondering how on earth anyone can tell if she won the gold medal, think about the generations of timing improvements that have made it possible to really know (the touchpad used in the swimming pool was first deployed in the 1968 Games). It could all come down to a hundredth of a second or less. That’s what makes the challenge and the exhilaration of sports timing–a half breath, an outstretched arm, a final push into the history of human effort.

Welcoming New HSNY Members, April 2024

HSNY would like to welcome the following new members. It is only with our members' support that we are able to continue flourishing as America's oldest watchmaking guild and advancing the art and science of horology every day. 

GOLD

  • Nishant Patel, FL

SILVER

  • Harold D. Shappell III, TX

BRONZE

  • Andrew Bartus, IL

  • Andrew ONeal, NY

  • Darren Bush, WI

  • Duane Tollison, NY

  • Faisal Nayani, GA

  • Henry Guzman, CA

  • Ira Wood, TX

  • Jason Artyukhov, NY

  • Jason Sippel, England

  • Jefferson Ogg, OH

  • Jeffery Harper, IL

  • Joel Keller, CA

  • Jonathan Najmi, NJ

  • Matthew Corluka, CA

  • Matthew Dawe, NY

  • Nicholas Moro, NY

  • Sean Harris, Germany

  • Steve M. Wooten, CT

  • Steven Krichbaum, MD

  • Timothy Patterson, NY

Upcoming Lecture: Ideal vs. Real: Searching for Perfection in an Imperfect Universe

PLEASE NOTE JUNE’S LECTURE WILL BEGIN AT 6PM.

Jack Forster, Global Editorial Director, The 1916 Company (New York, New York)
June 3, 2024

The world of horology, of timekeeping and calendar reckoning, is based on the assumption that in the world around us, there are orders that can be reflected in watches and clocks. This includes everything from the simplest precision timekeepers, which rely on the stability of mechanical, electromechanical, and quantum oscillators, to highly complex calendars and calendar systems that reflect cycles in the physical universe, including the motion of astronomical bodies. Beginning from an examination of the simplest ideal classical oscillator – a pendulum with a massless rod, swinging in a vacuum on a frictionless bearing – this lecture will look at the gaps between ideal systems and their physical manifestations.

At the June lecture of the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), Jack Forster, Global Editorial Director of The 1916 Company, will look at factors affecting the stability of oscillators and also at the behavior of longer natural cycles that determine the structure of calendars. In both cases, the great challenge is for horologists to understand that it is fundamentally and axiomatically impossible to ever duplicate the behavior of idealized systems – but the challenge is to get as close as you can. What connects the simplest and the most complex horological mechanisms, is their attempt to capture the ideal – whether an ideal oscillator or a perfectly harmonious calendar – in a mechanical form. 

*Doors open at 5:30 PM ET, lecture to begin at 6 PM ET. RSVP is required.

** The lecture video will be available to members immediately, and to the general public following a two-month delay.

Reading Time at HSNY: Bedini’s Books

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our librarian, Miranda Marraccini. 

Image 1

Sometimes a mark in a book makes you feel as if you know someone. In this case, it’s an image on a bookplate of a cramped space filled with books, some splayed out, some haphazardly piled (image 1). Barely discernible behind the wings of one giant volume are the hands and cap of a man, reading. He’s hunched over in concentration or absorption (his expression isn’t visible). The Latin motto around the square image reads “Satis Temporis Non Est Nobis” or “For us, there is not enough time.”

Besides the most obvious meaning of this phrase, a kind of memento mori about the brevity of life, there’s also a separate subtext for bibliophiles like us: there’s never enough time to read the books we want, and never enough books about time. I know as a reader I heavily identify with the first part of that subtext and as a librarian at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), the second. This bookplate, and the book it adorns, belonged to the late Silvio Bedini (1917-2007). 

A colorful American historian and longtime scholar at the Smithsonian Institution, Bedini was a bibliophile and horologist of the first order. He helped create the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian, a repository of rare books and manuscripts on astronomy, chemistry, and more. At HSNY, we recently acquired a selection of books from Bedini’s personal library, which had been sold to Second Story Books in Washington, D.C.

Bedini wrote many books about timekeeping, which we have in our library at HSNY, but he had diverse research interests, including dominoes, elephants, and incense, wrote The Washington Post in an obituary after he died in 2007 (see image 2, a collection of books by Bedini). He wrote the first biography of noted Black scholar and horologist Benjamin Banneker. Bedini was, by all reports, a “walking encyclopedia”: his son Peter called him a collector of “tidbits” like “how the Coca-Cola bottle got its shape, what is the most poisonous snake, how to write and break codes.” (This last “tidbit” came in handy when Bedini reportedly worked to develop methods for Allied POWs to send secret messages during World War II.)

Image 2

I would love to highlight all 16 magnificent Bedini books we acquired, now settling into their cozy home at HSNY! But alas, I have only so many column inches, so I’ll include just enough to tempt you to the library to see these treasures. I’ll start with the oldest, then the rarest.

If you’ve been to our library, you’ve probably heard my spiel about the rare books section and our oldest book, a Latin chronology published in 1652 by Jesuit theologian Denis Pétau. Well, Pétau has been dethroned! Our new champion, clocking in at a devastatingly ancient 451 years old, is “Trattato Dell’Uso Della Sfera” by Ignazio Danti. Ding ding ding, the belt is yours, Danti!

Now, age isn’t everything when it comes to rare books (see my next item for an example) but even if it hadn’t been printed back in 1573, this book is cool (image 3 shows the title page). It’s the first book published in Italy about the astrolabe. An astrolabe is a multifunctional star chart, either flat or spherical, that can make complicated navigational and horological calculations. In the Early Modern period, astronomical clocks based on the astrolabe included moving models of the positions of planets and stars. (If you want to learn more about how to operate an astrolabe, I found this explanation from the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford relatively accessible.)

But this book isn’t just about the astrolabe itself; it also covers other astronomical and astrological topics, including the signs of the zodiac. Image 4 shows what looks to me like a Universal Equinoctial Ring Dial–a mouthful of a name, but simply a type of sundial used to determine time at sea at a given latitude. However, a number of these navigational devices look similar, including a mariner’s astrolabe and a nocturnal, and although I’m sure Bedini could tell me more, the text is not very clear about the divisions. The device includes a familiar division of time into 24 segments on the outer rim of a thick plate.

Image 3

Image 4

Ignazio Danti (not to be confused with his more famous Florentine counterpart, the divine Dante Alighieri) was somewhat like Silvio Bedini himself–a polymathic mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic bishop. He created magnificent maps, globes, and scientific instruments, including astrolabes. Unlike the author of our now second-oldest book, Danti published in Italian, using the common tongue rather than Latin to appeal to a broader audience.

The second Bedini book I want to highlight is another Italian marvel, Antonio Cagnoli’s “De’Due Orologi Italiano E Francese.” Though this book was published in 1787 (practically yesterday compared to Danti) the copy in our library is one of only a few known to exist in the world (title page, image 5).

Image 5

This book focuses on “Italian time,” a traditional method of timekeeping where a day began at sunset with the hour 1, and ended at the next sunset with hour 24. Because the system made sunset its benchmark, it was helpful for people to figure out how much time they had left before it got dark and they could no longer work without artificial light. You can see an example of a clock with a dial showing Italian hours in this article about St Mark’s Clock in Venice. Around the time Cagnoli’s book was published, Italians were already switching over to what is called in the book “French time,” which was the standard in many parts of Europe. Napoleon’s invasion of Italy a few years later may have hastened this conversion.

Anyone who’s read my previous articles knows I’m somewhat obsessed with marginalia–the things people write in books, the scrawls and smudges that show how people really use and love them. In image 6, you can see some handwritten annotations in “De’Due Orologi Italiano E Francese.” On the left, a cartoon pointing hand (called a manicule) denotes a part of the text that a reader found important, much like an 18th-century highlighter. It points to a section about the time issues that result from the fact that the length of the day on Earth varies depending on the season–the idea of solar versus sidereal time. Below, penciled horological calculations try to work out something about how the number of minutes in a day changes as the season changes. Perhaps the reader was a little bit confused by the text, because there’s a lone question mark hovering in the right-hand margin.

Image 6

You’ll notice that both of these books are in Italian. Bedini, though from Connecticut, certainly collected many books in Italian, and I took the opportunity of the book sale to enhance our relatively slim collections in that language (we have far more in German and French). Aside from the bookplates, some of the books show other marks of Bedini’s usage and indications of his interest. 

Image 7

In a 1954 catalog of objects in the Museum of the History of Science in Florence (now Museo Galileo), red pencil circles document specific items he must have found intriguing, such as two Italian telescopes made out of cardboard in the 17th century. Bedini was clearly fascinated by the shared history of early scientific instruments, how things like the microscope, the telescope, and the sundial fit together to help us explain and measure our complicated world. Image 7 shows a photograph I found tucked in the same book. If you can identify the instrument in the photo, let me know.  

The unidentified photo hints at other mysteries in Bedini’s books I have yet to explore. One book, for instance, appears to be a commemoration of the electric clocks of Lecce in southern Italy, which the author claims was on the cutting edge when it introduced public electric clocks in 1868. (Electric clocks as a whole were invented in 1840.) I’d love to learn more about why the small city of Lecce became a beacon of the electric clock revolution, and if any of their 19th-century clocks are still there today.

Similarly, I’m now fascinated by the career of James Ferguson, a Scottish astronomer who published a volume of collected lectures in 1825 (title page, image 8). Is the math accurate on his calculation showing “the mean time of any New or Full Moon, or Eclipse, from the creation of the world to the year of Christ 5800”? Has anyone ever tried to build his surreal-looking “universal dial” (image 9) which shows the time on different parts of the globe by the use of shadows only? 

Image 8

Image 9

I don’t currently know the answers to these questions, but I’m looking forward to finding out. Bedini’s books, once in his home or office in Washington, now in our library in Manhattan, are a papery bridge between scholars of different generations. Just touching them, smelling them, I can feel the intensity of Bedini’s enthusiasm for knowledge–not just “tidbits,” but rather whole reams of esoteric information and uncovered stories. In using these books, I hope visitors to the library will be able to feel it too. And I hope Bedini would approve.

HSNY Awards Record $150K in Financial Aid at Gala (Pics)

Lifetime Membership Card Crafted by Voutilainen SA

The Horological Society of New York (HSNY) held its 158th anniversary Gala & Awards Ceremony on Saturday, April 6, 2024, where it awarded a record-breaking $150,000 in financial aid to 25 watchmaking students and four U.S. watchmaking schools, and raised an additional $113,000 toward its mission to advance the art and science of horology.

HSNY celebrated a night of philanthropy, glamour, and horology at its annual gala held once again at the historic Harvard Club of New York City across the street from the Society’s headquarters. The black-tie affair brought together 280 esteemed VIP attendees, community leaders, and passionate supporters, all uniting under one roof to champion horological initiatives.

Richard and Carol Heppner, Gala 2024

Highlights of the evening included guests of honor Carol Heppner, the great-granddaughter of HSNY’s founding president George Schmid, and actors Ben Ahlers and Simon Jones from HBO’s The Gilded Age, which has a storyline featuring HSNY.

Actors Ben Ahlers and Simon Jones from HBO’s The Gilded Age, Gala 2024.

Attendees also took part in a lively auction, where they had the chance to bid on items and experiences generously donated by HSNY sponsors and supporters. Lots included one-of-a-kind experiences and coveted watches, and of course, HSNY’s 2024 Lifetime Membership Card, which was auctioned by Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo and sold for a hammer price of $18,000. The one-of-a-kind card, which grants lifetime membership privileges at HSNY, is an 18-karat gold hand-engraved card by Voutilainen SA and features a stunning design and brilliant guilloché pattern. 

Philanthropic activities continued throughout the evening, with famed horologist and HSNY Trustee Roger Smith OBE who presented this year’s ceremonial giant check to watchmaking student Justin Baxter of the Lititz Watch Technicum. HSNY awarded a record $150,000 in scholarships and awards in 2024. (Please see below a full list of financial aid recipients.)

Roger Smith OBE presents a ceremonial giant check to watchmaking student Justin Baxter of the Lititz Watch Technicum, Gala 2024.

HSNY thanks all participating brands, sponsors, members and guests for their support! A save-the-date for HSNY’s 2025 Gala & Awards Ceremony is coming soon!

For more information about HSNY and how to get involved, please visit www.hs-ny.org. 

Participating Brands

  • A. Lange & Söhne

  • Audemars Piguet

  • The Armoury

  • Blancpain

  • Breguet

  • Bulgari

  • Cierto Tequila

  • Collectability

  • Grand Seiko

  • H. Moser & Cie

  • HODINKEE

  • Jaeger-LeCoultre

  • Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo

  • Roger W. Smith

  • Romain Gauthier

  • Ulysse Nardin

  • Vacheron Constantin

  • VomBoden - Importer of Fine Wines

  • Wempe

  • Watches of Switzerland

HSNY 2024 Financial Aid

  • The Henry B. Fried Scholarship for Watchmaking Students

    • Paolo Gonzales (Nicolas G. Hayek Watchmaking School)

    • Brandon McAnally (Paris Junior College Watchmaking Program)

    • Max Conser (North Seattle College Watch Technology Institute)

    • William Ready (North American Institute of Swiss Watchmaking)

    • Nicholas Amelung (Lititz Watch Technicum)

    • Gideon Bodley (Lititz Watch Technicum)

    • Itay Edry (Lititz Watch Technicum)

  • The Charles London Scholarship for Watchmaking Students

    • Brandon Hoorfard (Nicolas G. Hayek Watchmaking School)

    • Bryan Borquez (North American Institute of Swiss Watchmaking)

    • Michael Davanzo (North Seattle College Watch Technology Institute)

    • Youri Boggio-Pola (Lititz Watch Technicum)

    • Samuel Mallow (North Seattle College Watch Technology Institute)

    • Hudson Mickey (Lititz Watch Technicum)

  • The Grace Fryer Scholarship for Female Watchmaking Students 

    • Greta Berckmueller (Lititz Watch Technicum)

    • C Luise Pitcairn (Lititz Watch Technicum)

    • Isabella Sosa (Paris Junior College Watchmaking Program)

    • Khalisah Tanner (North American Institute of Swiss Watchmaking)

    • Lezlie Soule (North Seattle College Watch Technology Institute)

# # #

ABOUT THE HOROLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

Founded in 1866, the Horological Society of New York (HSNY) is one of the oldest continuously operating horological associations in the world. Today, HSNY is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art and science of horology through education. Members are a diverse mix of watchmakers, clockmakers, executives, journalists, auctioneers, historians, salespeople and collectors, reflecting the rich nature of horology in New York City and around the world. http://hs-ny.org

Reading Time at HSNY: See You in the Chat Room

This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY. Today’s article is guest-written by our intern, St John Karp, a graduate student in Library and Information Science at Pratt Institute.

Image 1: Swatch Skin “Silverize” (2000) displaying the time as @922 beats.

Alternative Ways of Telling the Time

In 1999 Swatch launched a satellite into orbit around the planet Earth. Sputnik 99 (or “Beatnik”) carried a radio transmitter designed to synchronize the time for Swatch’s “.beat” line of watches. These watches could tell the time using conventional hours, minutes, and seconds, but their selling point was that they could also display the time using Internet Time, a Swatch initiative backed by MIT that divided the day into 1,000 beats. The director of MIT’s Media Lab Nicholas Negroponte, channeling the argot of the dot-com era, said, “Cyberspace has no seasons and no night and day. Internet Time is absolute time for everybody. Internet Time is not geopolitical. It is global. In the future, for many people, real time will be Internet Time.”

The Horological Society of New York (HSNY) has an extensive collection of ephemera in its library, and during my internship, I was able to dig up a number of Swatch catalogs from the late 1990s and early 2000s that showcase Swatch’s attempt to reinvent time (see image 1).

Decimal time and alternative time-keeping systems have a history as long and checkered as my pajama pants. The French revolutionaries in the 1790s proposed decimal units of time as part of the Republican calendar, which reinvented the calendar with new months and seasons and set the year One as the first year of the French Republic. Horologists such as Louis Berthoud made clocks and watches that displayed this metric time, and several of HSNY’s books detail the history of these gorgeous pieces (image 2). Sadly the Republican calendar did not outlast the revolution, though I’ve calculated that my birthday would have fallen on the first day of Thermidor — the month when people tended to get assassinated.

Image 2: A French Revolution-era clock with a ten-hour dial, from “La Révolution dans la Mesure du Temps,” a book in HSNY’s library.

In a similar vein, Fritz Lang depicted a 10-hour clock in his film Metropolis, both as an aspect of the film’s futurism but also as a symbol of the mechanization of humanity. In the same film, a man is made to function as a machine part by physically moving the hands on a large dial to match a sequence of light bulbs (image 3). Traditional Chinese timekeeping uses the shí, a unit of measure that divides the day into 12 hours (an interesting parallel to Western timekeeping). However, it also employs the kè, which represents one-hundredth of a day and places it squarely in the category of decimal time.

Image 3: A man clings to the hand of a ten-hour clock in “Metropolis” (1927).

The main reason a decimal clock failed to take off in Western timekeeping might be mathematical. When an hour has sixty minutes, a third of an hour is a round number that lines up with the twenty-minute mark. A decimal clock, on the other hand, with one hundred “minutes” in an hour, would mean that a third of an hour would be 33 ⅓ minutes and would not align with any indicators on the clock face. The twenty-four-hour day and sixty-minute hour are in fact so convenient that, in training simulations for the planet Mars, NASA employs a time system that simply stretches Earth hours and seconds to last slightly longer and sync up with the Martian day.

Perhaps another reason decimal time never caught the popular imagination is because it carries an element of the uncanny. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four famously opens with, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” The thought of a clock striking thirteen is so unnatural that it can presage the horrors of living under a totalitarian state. In Eugène Ionesco’s play The Bald Soprano the clock strikes as many as 29 times while two couples engage in alienating and unsettling dialog (see image 4). Like the distorted sense of space in Gothic literature, a clock that strikes the wrong number disorients us and fills us with a sense of dread.

Image 4: From “The Bald Soprano”: “[The clock] is contradictory and always indicates the opposite of what the hour really is.”

Don’t be fooled by the wreckage of the past, though. Decimal time is alive and well. Every Unix computer since the 1970s, which includes your MacBook and your Android phone, keeps track of the time in seconds elapsed since the beginning of the “epoch” (January 1, 1970). This number, currently somewhere in the one billion seven-hundred millions, is due for a reckoning in the year 2038 when it will grow so large it will overflow the computer’s ability to store it, similar to the crisis that happened in the late 1990s with the Y2K bug.

Of course if computer programmers are the only ones using alternative time systems today, they’re also the only ones joking about them. The furlong-firkin-fortnight (FFF) system of units uses the fortnight as the basis of its timekeeping. Paired with SI units this makes the microfortnight equal to approximately 1.2 seconds. The same sense of humor is probably responsible for the fact that Linux computers can still tell the date using the calendar of the Discordian religion (a stoner-inspired parody in a similar vein to the Flying Spaghetti Monster). My computer informs me that today is Sweetmorn, the thirteenth day of Discord in the Year of Our Lady Discordia 3190.

Image 5: Swatch Signs “Net” (1996)

Talk of computers brings me back to the dot-com era when the Internet was still shiny and new. Swatch had toyed with engaging in internet culture as early as 1996 when they released a watch that made prominent use of the @ sign (see image 5). Swatch, holding fast to the @ as an indicator of internet cred, repurposed it in 1998 as the beat symbol for their Internet Time. The premise of this timekeeping system was that it would be the same number of beats in any location around the world, neatly defenestrating the entire concept of time zones but failing to replace them with anything else. You could say to your friend in Norway or Australia, “Meet me in the chat room at @722 beats,” but you would have no idea whether 722 beats would be early in the morning or late at night. Swatch, perhaps guiltily aware of the flaw in their system, appeared to draw attention to it in a promotional video in which a man is woken up by a friend calling from a different country because the friend is using Internet time and doesn’t understand how early he’s calling. The two go back and forth about what time it really is, but the friend doesn’t get the concept of time zones now that he’s discovered Internet time.

Image 6: Swatch Skin “Shadiness” (2000) displaying the time as @431 beats.

The Planck time is the shortest unit of time possible given the laws of physics, but that is still longer than Swatch’s ill-starred satellite was operational. It ran afoul of commercial broadcasting regulations and had its batteries removed shortly before it was released into orbit from the Mir space station. It was decommissioned before they even pushed it through the airlock, and became garbage floating in space. Internet Time persisted as a key part of Swatch’s digital offerings for the next few years but the catalogs in HSNY’s library show that Internet Time had largely dropped off the radar by about 2003. The official Internet Time website, however, is still online and loyally informing me that it’s @583 beats right now. See you in the chat room!