Summit watches used imported movements from Switzerland, assembled and distributed from a succession of premises in Sheffield, concluding with Summit House on Nursery Street.
I now have two Summit watches. Both are 17 jewel and manual wind. The first one I acquired had no back, but it’s a really nice watch, so rather than wait before wearing it until I found a back, I made one to fit it out of two pieces of gorilla tape, one slightly greater in diameter than the other, and stuck together shiny sides out. Works fine and can’t be seen in use. Fortunately, the movement is flat; you couldn’t do this with a mechanical automatic because the rotor usually requires the extra space offered by a slightly domed back. This watch watch works perfectly. I really like the face, with the 24 hour clock in red outside the regular 12 hour. Ignore the bracelet- that’s obviously not contemporary with the watch; in fact it’s from a modern Rotary and I added it myself because it seemed to set off the face quite well.
I tend to favour the Bauhaus school (less is more) in watch design, and most oversized modern bling watches covered in useless extra dials, garish bezels and so on don’t appeal to me at all. Nor do I tend to need a watch for skin-diving. You could give me a 2026 Rolex if you like, but I shouldn’t wear it, all I would do is sell it and buy an Audemars Piguet from the 1960s, if the proceeds of the sale were sufficient.
Most of the the time, I collect less famous but really well-made brands from the pre-quartz period. Every now and then you stumble across examples that have sat in boxes for fifty years because, these days, nobody remembers how to wind watches, and people suppose their grandfather’s old-fashioned Ardath or Roamer doesn’t run because it needs a new battery.
My second Summit watch has to be later than 1970, since the back says water resistant. Prior to that year it would have read waterproof, even though watches of the era probably weren’t. This one also keeps good time and looks good. There’s no doubt that the central second hand is more effcient for use than the earlier subdial, but for me this whole dial is a touch cluttered and chunky by comparison with the previous one. It’s still a handsome timepiece though.
By the way, antichoc and incabloc effectively mean the same thing: the watch can take a knock and keep going. The founder of the Pontiac brand once threw one of his products off the top of a tall building to demonstrate this!
Summit was founded by Julius Isaacs, who was a Polish immigrant, arriving in Sheffield in the 1880s. They operated as watch repairers as well as importers, and two generations at least ran the firm until it was taken over by Pinder Bros in 1984. It is possible that Summit House was the former Sheffield Refreshment House, and later became the New Testament Church of God; if so, it has been engaged in good “works” for a great many years. It was also close to the coroner’s court and the mortuary, both of which obviously ran related businesses!
An apprentice watchmaker who started at Summit House straight from school recorded that his job included taking movements from cases of 100 in which they arrived and fitting each one into a watch case, occasionally gold but usually not. His job included removing whatever name was printed on the dial and reprinting with “Leda” if they were cheap movements or “Summit” if they were the more expensive ones.
Bear in mind that you have to fit the stem after the movement is in the case, tighten up the tiny screw on the movement that holds the stem in place, and then fit the back of the case, not forgetting any necessary sealing washers or space fillers to prevent the movement from sliding about. All these processes were done by hand.
The firm also ran a trade counter where most of the jewellers in Sheffield would come to buy parts.
Since I have a soft spot for the history of my home town I like to have a few pieces of Sheffield memorabilia about the place. If I thought readers were likely to be interested, I could add to what I have already written on Substack about Old Sheffield Plate, and I could open a whole new topic on the subject of cutlery, but maybe I’d better not push my luck.
Oh, I don’t know though. We can’t spend all our time talking about politics!
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