Jeweled Bearings for Watches

First published in 1911, Jeweled Bearings for Watches is a focused workshop manual on the manufacture, gauging, and setting of jeweled bearings—the synthetic and natural stones whose use as pivot bearings transformed timekeeping precision over the course of the 19th century.

The book treats jeweling as a single continuous craft. Higginbotham begins with raw slabs of stone and works through cutting, shaping, and polishing the jewels themselves; making the settings; fitting jewels to settings; and rubbing finished jewels into watch plates with end-shake correction and gauging procedures along the way. By 1911 most of this work had moved to factory machinery, but the bench watchmaker who needed to make, replace, or fit a jewel by hand still needed the underlying craft—and that is what Higginbotham sets out.

Charles T. Higginbotham wrote from deep factory experience: he served as superintendent of the Seth Thomas Watch Factory from 1887 to 1900, where he designed the prize-winning “Maiden Lane” grade, and at the time of writing was Consulting Superintendent at the South Bend Watch Company. Co-authored with Paul Higginbotham.