Watches

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 17 April 1926, Page 9

Watches

Watches have played parts in the /lives of many great men. Napoleon, after the Battle of Marengo, gave Iris general, Murat, a magnificently wrought watch with the Bonaparte likeness on the outside ease and the rim set with pearls.

Probably the smallest watch in tire world, although that distinction is disputed by a timepiece owned by the Sultan of Morocco, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Xew York, as part of the Sternberger collection. It is no larger than a peppercorn, and it is -.set in a finely etched gold' pen. Another curiosity near by is a watch, snuffbox and' music box combined, all superbly enamelled, and scarcely larger than a. man’s thumb.

Shapes of watches, too, .allow for a wide personal choice, for besides the round watch we have the square, cushion, octagon, pentagon, tonneau, tulip, pansy and 1 rococo. Some of these are unusual, but they Scarcely compare with the famous death’s-head watches that Mary Queen of Scots owned, or the countless varieties of beetles, crosses, coffins, birds and the like, that ancient worthies carried, when watches were now in the worldr—and frightfully expensive.