Despite having produced twenty-four Seth Thomas pocket watch models, hundreds of differently “branded” private label pocket watches, four factory named grades, and an undetermined quantity of Seth Thomas numbered grades; the Seth Thomas product line can be fairly simple to understand if you look at it from the perspective of the underlying foundational standards to which all of its mechanisms conform.

In the six areas of this section, you will see images and explanations of things that collectors and watchmakers talk about without really defining clearly. This section will help you to understand and organize what might presently seem like a hopeless tangle of confusing information into clearly defined columns and rows; and then we’ll connect the dots together so that you need not miss the forest for the trees.

All of the very general information in this section of the website lays the foundation for understanding the more detailed, specific information in the next section of the website, “Characteristics of Seth Thomas Pocket Watches” that will focus on specification charts and a photo album of specific specimens in each of the twenty-four distinctive Seth Thomas models.