FOB WATCH HOLDER WITH MAGNIFIER, 1940's

A bedside fob watch holder with a magnifying glass illuminated by a bulb in front of the watch powered by an internal battery and turned on by a pear shaped push button switch. The individual would place the unit by there bedside, if they wished to know the time it could be viewed by pressing the switch without the need for there spectacles unlike other units of this type.

Bruce Hammond Collection

Your comments:

• It makes sense for those needing reading glasses as old age advances. You might not want to hunt about for your spectacles in the dark in order to be able to locate your watch and then to be able to read it if needed to know the time. Problem solved- it lights up and magnifies the watch face for you. You can get catalogues today that full of gadgets like this that I like to sneer at but no doubt will one day need.
  .......... Bryn, London, 12th of October 2014
  
  
• One wonders if this is in fact a time projector. I have several in different forms. This object could throw an image of a watch dial on to a wall but the distance between projector and wall would be fixed. More likely the lens was to save the operator fumbling for their glasses?
  .......... Bob Smallbone, , 15th of August 2014
  
  
• There were many home constructors' illustrated articles for these gadgets in the "Practical" home modellers' journals, turn of the century, such as those from the Marshall stable. A typical fancy example consisted of a small section of railway track, the battery - a home-made "dry" Leclanche cell - being carried in a small truck, the watch-hook and the lamp being mounted on a gantry on the buffers which made the electrical contact "switch" as the battery truck was pushed up to them.
  
  Other designs were somewhat risky, as they used a liquid acid cell with the lamp illuminated by lowering the electrodes. One wonders how many bed-side table covers had a little hole burned in them?
  
  The item shown is a very nice example. Thank you. ajb
  .......... Anthony Bullock, Gloucestershire, England, 23rd of April 2011
  
  
• This is an Bedside Watch Stand. "Ever Ready" I think made a similar
  device,1930s -1950s
  .......... L.J.W Antiques, Wokingham, Berkshire.UK, 15th of September 2009
  
  

A1571