The Best Pocket Watches for Wrist-Less Time-Telling (2024)

We’re guilty of falling into the trap of referring to watches or timepieces of any sort that predate digital clocks and smartphones as being purely utilitarian. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Watches were and always have been as much about men’s fashion and style as they have been about the practical need to know what time it is. Anyone who doubts as much need only look at the history of the pocket watch. For those who are looking to actually buy themselves a pocket watch to use, we’d almost rather suggest you look to buy vintage watches rather than any of the below. But if you’re looking to see what the best of the best look like when it comes to pocket watches, we’ve got you covered here in our rundown of the best pocket watches on the market today.

History of the Pocket Watch

First introduced in the 16th century, pocket watches – or what would become the pocket watch – were more smallish clocks than anything else. They were often styled to be worn on clothing or around a person’s neck, were largish in diameter, and featured wild decorations. It wasn’t until the popularization of the waistcoat by Charles II in the early 1600s that consumers started to abandon their large, goofy watches and begin looking for thinner, rounder timepieces that they could put in their pockets. For the next 300 years, watches mostly remained in the pockets. And as the style stood static, interior movements, time-keeping mechanisms, and affordability were what began to improve. It wasn’t really until WWI that pocket watches began to fall out of style. Soldiers who fought in the trenches took to strapping their pocket watches to their wrists – a fashion that women had taken to doing some time before. When they came back home, they brought the new style with it.

Pocket watches never really recovered after WWI. The image of a soldier with a watch on his wrist became domesticated, normalized, and incredibly popular. Even James Bond’s watches were worn on the wrist. As a result – you simply won’t find many pocket watches on the market anymore. Here and there you’ll come across a few affordable ones from brands you, nor anyone else, has heard of. For the most part though, this antiquated style has been kept afloat by legacy Swiss watch brands who use the pocket watch as a showcase for their most wild and limited movements. And their price? Shockingly expensive even for the watch world.

Types of Pocket Watches

Open-Faced: One of the most classic iterations of a pocket watch, the open-faced design has no cover to speak of, although it has the standard chain loop at the top. This style was most popular among railroad workers in the late 19th century.

Full-Hunter: The other common style you’ll come across is the full-hunter. These have a hinged cover that’s solid and can be opened with a small button within the crown. Fans of full-hunter watches may also be attracted to the engravable quality of the covers themselves.

Half-Hunter: Less common than the full-hunter, although utilizing a similar deployment, the half-hunter has a window within its cover so you can still read the time when it’s closed. The numerals are usually printed around the outside of the window.

Double-Hunter: Double-hunter watches are like full-hunters except they can be opened from both sides — typically to showcase and protect an exhibition caseback that reveals the movement. The front side commonly features a skeletonized dial as well. These are also nice because they can double as a stand-up desk clock when both sides are left opened. If you really want to get crazy, you can get yourself a double half-hunter.

Rapport Mechanical Open Face Pocket Watch

Best Affordable Pocket Watch: The one downside about being a pocket watch collector is the inability to find quality pieces for affordable prices. One exception is Rapport’s Mechanical Open Face reference, which can be obtained for just a few hundred bucks. But don’t get it twisted, this timepiece is every bit luxurious as you’d want it to be, with a vintage-inspired dial featuring Roman numerals for the hours, an inner minute dial sporting a swirl design, and a seconds subdial. You have two case options here — silver- or gold-plated — which house a 17-jewel automatic movement.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Automatic

Tissot Double Savonnette Mechanical

Best Hunter Watch: Leave it to Tissot to make a beautiful pocket watch for around $1,000. The Swiss brand has long been perfecting the idea of quality timepieces at affordable prices. This iteration of the double-hunter style (“savonnette” is another name for a hunter watch) has a modest 49.8mm case size made of palladium-plated brass. It houses an automatic movement, which is visible through the caseback. Colored in silver, the dial itself is magnificent with Roman numeral hour markers, a small seconds subdial, and beautiful vintage-inspired hand designs.

Type: Double-hunter
Movement: Automatic

Hamilton American Classic RailRoad Pocket Watch

Best Railroad-Inspired: For decades before the wristwatch blew up following World War I, pocket watches were the time-keepers of choice for railway conductors. Perhaps the most favorite brand at the turn of the 20th century was Hamilton, whose references were renowned for their accuracy and precision. To celebrate its 130th anniversary last year, the watchmaker released a special-edition pocket watch informed by these original pieces circa 1892 with the same font for the hour numerals. This version sports a 50mm stainless steel case, an engraved caseback, and a dial with a fully-graduated outer minutes track and a small seconds subdial at the 6 o’clock spot.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Automatic

Bovet Amadeo Fleurier 43 Monsieur BOVET

Best Convertible Pocket Watch: Pocket watches may be the epitome of vintage time-telling but sometimes the nature of it needing to remain in your pocket for most of the time prevents you from being able to show it off as much as possible. In 2015, Bovet figured out a solution with its Amadeo convertible system, which allowed you to take your pocket watch and — with no tools — convert it to wear as a wristwatch. Not only that, but the timepiece still maximizes its beauty in its chained form because you’re able to showcase both sides with ease. On one side, the 43mm case (in 18k red or white gold) on the Fleurier Monsieur Bovet displays a beautiful guilloche motif while the reverse side displays the time on a smaller dial with the hand-wound movement skeletonized around it.

Type: Convertible open-face
Movement: Manual

Omega Olympic Pocket Watch 1932

Best Chronograph: In Los Angeles in 1932, Omega became the first watchmaker to time the entire Olympic Games. Decades later, after the movement kits for this pocket watch were uncovered at the brand’s headquarters in Biel, Switzerland where it had been resting since 1932, it was apparent to everyone at Omega that it needed to be re-released to the public. Within the whopping 70mm case made from 18k white gold, the caseback of this watch is stamped with the Olympic rings, and opens up to reveal a manual-winding 3889 chronograph movement that drives the four hands which travel around the main dial, and the two smaller totalizers. Limited to just 100 pieces, this is one of the most coveted Omega watches around.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Manual chronograph

Urwerk UR-1001

Most Unorthodox: One benefit of the pocket watch sandbox is it gives the watchmaker more room to play with. For Urwerk, a brand known for pushing the limit of what a watch can be, the sky’s the limit. For its UR-1001 pocket watch, it employs its signature design ethos but does so much more with it. At an incredible 106mm long by 62mm wide, the outrageous timepiece features all of the watchmaker’s unique complications and indicators. Made from heat-blackened steel, it tells the time via its satellite hour hand against a retrograde minute dial, while the day and date are given the same way. There’s also a day/night indicator and if you pop open the back it will show you how long the watch has been ticking for, up to 1,000 years.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Automatic

Piaget Altiplano pocket watch

Best Wristwatch Homage: Limited to just 26 pieces, this pocket watch from Piaget is a version of their famous Altiplano wristwatch to celebrate its 60th anniversary. The reference made waves in the late 1950s due to its incredibly thin case and clean, blue dial. Sporting an open-face design, this pocket watch iteration is similarly blue and thin, but is free of a band or set of lugs, sporting only a single blue leather strap. The 18k white gold case is finished with rhodium and houses the in-house automatic movement which is exhibited through the sapphire caseback. Unlike the wristwatch, which is commonly 41mm in diameter, this version is also much wider at 50mm.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Automatic

Patek Philippe 973J

Best Overall: Patek Philippe releasing this open-faced pocket watch is akin to Ford re-releasing an old Mustang from the mid-to-late 1960s. More an homage to the classic build than an exhibition of what they’re currently capable of, the watch still ticks with the brand’s quality precision. Housed in a 44mm yellow gold case, the manual-winding movement has a 50 hour power reserve that drives two hands around a white lacquered dial with applied gold Arabic numerals, and a small seconds hand around a subdial located at the 6 o’clock spot. It also comes with a matching yellow gold chain.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Manual

Audemars Piguet Classique

Best Upgrade Hunter Watch: While there aren’t any available at the time of this writing, the Classique pocket watches from Audemars Piguet are certainly worth the mention. With 637 components and around 800 hours of work per unit, the timepiece is as coveted and mechanically impressive as it is beautiful. Not only is it housed in an 18k gold case but the movement is crafted in part from gold as well. A few winds of this pocket watch’s crown will set an incredibly capable movement into action powering not only four hands along the watch’s face, but a chronograph movement, subdials that track the date, small seconds, day, month, and moonphase. Not bad for a throwback.

Type: Double-hunter
Movement: Automatic Chronograph

Breguet No. 5 Pocket Watch

Best Grail Pocket Watch: There are grail watches and then there is the Breguet No. 5 Pocket Watch. Less of a timepiece for wearing than a museum-quality reproduction, the No. 5 pocket watch from Brugeut is a faithful recreation of the very watch made by Abraham-Louis Berguet between 1794 and 1815. Housed in a yellow gold case, the perpetual movement comes equipped with a 18k gold quarter repeater and platinum oscillating weight. Boasting a 60-hour power reserve, the self-winding mechanism also drives a moonphase indicator, a pair of hands that travel along a silvered gold dial, and a recessed small seconds subdial.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Automatic

Ball Trainmaster Secometer Pocket Watch

If there were one other watchmaker besides Hamilton who was perfecting the railroad watch prior to the wristwatch’s dominance, it would be Ball. Much smaller than a typical pocket watch at 45mm, this Trainmaster Secometer, which pays homage to the references that put the brand on the map, is a bit more historically accurate in that regard. However, there’s a reason why watches have gotten much bigger over time: They just look better when you take them out. The most distinct features on this open-face model are its hour markers, which are put on the case around the dial, and the small secometer, which depicts the seconds on a rotating disc.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Manual

Longines Heritage Railroad Pocket Watch

Longines’ prowess as a wristwatch manufacturer, especially with its pilot and dive watches, is undeniable in today’s market, so much so that most of us forget that the Swiss brand was once a force to be reckoned with in pocket watch territory. The first to make a chronograph pocket watch and pocket watch with two time zones — even Albert Einstein loved his Longines pocket watch — Longines recently made an open-face throwback to its railroad days with this reference. It features large Roman numerals on the dial and a small seconds dial, and is powered by a manual caliber movement, which is displayed through the open-heart caseback.

Type: Open-face
Movement: Manual