The pomander watch of 1505

The pomander watch dated 1505 surfaced in 1987, when a watchmaker's apprentice found it in a box of parts bought for ten pounds at a London flea market; after an expert called it a forgery or copy it changed hands, and a private collector bought it in 2002.^1, 2

Its owner's experts (Hermann Grieb, Peter Mikitisin, Frank Fox and Georg von Tardy) used CT scanning, laser spectral analysis and microphotography, and read the engraving 'MDV PHN' under the dial as '1505, Peter Henlein Nürnberg'; they presented it as genuine at a press conference in Nuremberg on 2 December 2014.^1, 2

Quill & Pad describes the 1505 watch as having a fire-gilt copper case about 4.5 cm across, an iron movement with fusee and chain, a regulator with holes for two hog's bristles, a single hand and about 12 hours' running.^1, 2

The owner's experts maintain the 1505 date and the Henlein attribution, but neither has been generally accepted: Quill & Pad noted that many found the results inconclusive, and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum's research of the same years treated the dating of every early 'oldest watch' with caution.^1, 3, 5

Not the Nuremberg museum's watch

The pomander watch is not the Germanisches Nationalmuseum's 'Henlein watch'. That object is a drum-shaped watch signed 1510, bought by the museum in 1897 and shown by the museum in 2014 to be largely a 19th-century assembly.^3, 6, 7

A pomander (Bisamapfel) was a perforated ball, often of precious metal, for carrying musk or other scent, believed to ward off disease; in the early 16th century Nuremberg makers began to fit small clock movements inside them.^2, 4

A pomander watch by Henlein is documented: on 11 January 1524 the city paid him 15 gulden for a gilded pomander 'for all things, with a clock'. Which surviving object, if any, is his is the question.^9, 10

Few pomander watches survive: the German Wikipedia counts the Melanchthon watch and two others that are incomplete or lack their movement, and the Wuppertal clock museum has an empty pomander case.^2, 4

Melanchthon's watch, a gilt brass sphere 4.8 cm across with an iron movement, is engraved 'PHIL. MELA. GOTT. ALEIN. DIE. EHR. 1530'. The Walters Art Museum calls it the earliest dated watch known; it runs 12 to 16 hours on one winding.^4, 11

Who made the Melanchthon watch is disputed: the Walters text names no maker and gives its origin as Augsburg with a question mark, while the English Wikipedia says Henlein was probably commissioned to make it as a gift from Nuremberg.^2, 11

The Melanchthon watch was sold by Jacques Seligmann of Paris to Henry Walters in 1910 and came to the Baltimore museum by his bequest in 1931; it was lent to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum for its 2014-2015 Henlein exhibition.^4, 11