UNUSUAL HOBBY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 106, 6 May 1936, Page 9

UNUSUAL HOBBY.

WATCH COLLECTING. i ______ CLOCKS WORTH HUNDREDS. i ____— TIME IN* EVERY POCKET. I Every bobby in the force, Has a watch and chain, of course— If you want to know the time, ask a policeman! There is no need to take the advice of the lines in the old music hall ditty when Mr. H. White Wickliam, of England, is about. He carries half a dozen in his pockets, rated to the hundredth part of a second on Greenwich time. It is one of his hobbies. For 20 years Mr. White Wickham, the well-known deep sea fisherman, who is at present visiting Auckland, has collected timepieces until he has about him a collection of watches, clocks and chronometers of all shapes, eizes and types worth thousands of pounds. . , One that he prizes dearly is the pocket watch of Count Tolstoi, the famous Russian author. It was made by Patek Philippe and Co., of Geneva, in 1885. Of solid g01d... with the Tolstoi, crest enamelled on the back of the case | in delicate hues, marvellously executed,] the watch originally cost about £140. j Its value to-day would be about £100, but the present owner is doubtful •whether he would #et even that much for it. Mr. White Wickham bought it from an antique dealer in London for £45.

An antique collector of all kinds, from ■watches to furniture, Mr. White Wickham is well known to the de.alers of England and the Continent, and when they find themselves in possession of a choice piece, they communicate with him.

A cumbersome thing, but att excellent timepiece, is an eight-day pocket chronometer, with a case of 18 carat gold. Made by Charles Frodsham, of London, the chronometer was ordered by a wealthy Bradford merchant who paid £300 for it. Years later, the merchant fell on bad times. He sold it. Mr. White Wickham bought it from a dealer for £80. .. _~ .

"Best in the World." Regarded by the National Physical Laboratory at Kew after a test as th.3 finest watch in the world and the finest ever made, another timepiece in Mr. White Wickham's possession cost him £75. The initials of the original owner have been delicately carved on the 1 front, with the owner's crest on the back. After the usual exhaustive six weeks' trial the watch was awarded at Kew 94.9 marks out of a possible 100. It is a pocKet chronometer, with Tour billon escapement, fitted with lever balance. The maker was M. Paul Ditisheim, of La Chaux de Fonde, Switzerland. The watch maintained time within the twentieth of a second per day of the finest marine chronometer ever tested at Greenwich and a marine chronometer is tested in only one position. Its mean variation of daily rate was only one eighteenth of a second and the error that might be expected of it was 2.7 seconds per month. The watch lost during a voyage to Australia and back, occupying five months, exactly three seconds.

Believed by Mr. White Wickham to lhave been stolen, the chronometer of U boat 100 was bought by the collector from a London antique dealer for £25. It originally cost £75. Another in his possession is a beautiful little French watch of solid platinum, which cost £120 to make. He found it among the treasures in a Regent Street jeweller's shop. It cost him £45. . A big expeditionary watch in a solid silver case, watertight even to the extent of having a cap over the winder movement, was bought by the collector for £45. It has luminous figures and its owner claims that you could swim a river with it in your pocket without harming it. A carerul record in specially printed books is kept by Mr. White Wickham of the eight best watches he owns. They are all checked on Greenwich time every day and rated to the hundredth part of a second. They vary only two or three seconds a month, if allowed to work that long without check. Mr. White Wickham mentioned' that the balance wheel of the average watch travels 15 1-3 mijos every 24 hours, so that in a year it would travel 5590 miles. One tenth of a drop of oil is all that is needed in a year for the balance wheel. "Every clock in Auckland has a different time," remarked Mr. White Wickham. "Time signals should be j "■iven out every day, as in London andj most other cities. K'IYA had a decent

chronometer the station could "put out the pips" at a given time every day and there would then be less variation in the times of the city's clocks." In all Mr. White Wickhara has about PO watches, clocks and chronometers worth thousands of pounds. He fits a special watch to his rod when big game fishing so that he knows the exact length of time it takes him to play and land a fish. Before he left London he bought a modern clip-on watch, which he wears in the lapel of hJ3 coat. It cost him £14 at a London jeweller's shop, but since he has had it it has lost eight minutes a day. He is taking it back to have new works put in. When Mr. White Wickliam travels he carries his most valuable watches in his pockets so that they will not be jolted. When he leaves on the Kangitane. for England to-morrow he will hand over to the third officer his treasured chronometers. They will be kept on the bridge and on the way Home the owner will spend half an hour every day checking his timepieces with Greenwich. He always has plenty of time.