Photo by
Thomas Del Brase
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Moments in Time
Alum employs his unusual skills to repair one of the world’s
most valuable watches
By Joe Wills
For two weeks last year, 35-year-old master clock maker and CSU,
Chico alum Paul Niess possessed—and repaired—one of
the most valuable watches in the world. Working almost nonstop
in a secret location miles away from his Chico shop, Niess retooled
a $3 million, 300-year-old pocket watch with a royal lineage that
had fallen into disrepair and obscurity.
You could say he’d been preparing his whole life for the
honor.
After a 10-year apprenticeship starting at age 10, followed by
a five-year apprenticeship at age 23, Niess became a certified
horologist, or clock maker. He also became, because of the special
talents of one of his mentors, one of 10 people in the world who
could repair the type of watch made hundreds of years ago by Cabrier,
the finest watchmaker in Europe. That skill remained dormant until
a fateful day in August 2006, when a friend called with information
about the watch that would change Niess’s life.
Niess has operated a clock sales and restoration shop called Father
Time in downtown Chico since 1996. While he majored in history
and psychology at CSU, Chico, there was never any doubt he would
pursue his lifelong devotion to the art of clock making. Thanks
to frequent appearances as an expert on the national radio show
Collectibles, hosted by North State appraiser John Humphries, Niess
repairs antique clocks and watches from all parts of the globe.
One afternoon, Humphries called Niess from Sacramento, where he
was hosting an open appraisal, like the popular Antiques Roadshow program on PBS. An elderly woman had brought a large, ornate pocket
watch to the appraisal and wanted to know its value. Sixty years
earlier the watch had been given to her husband by a close friend
of his grandmother’s. The grandmother’s friend, who
had no children of her own, knew the boy loved old watches. Now
the elderly woman’s husband was dead, and she was considering
selling the watch, which had been tucked away in a drawer since
1945. Humphries knew on sight that this was no ordinary watch,
and called Niess.
“I pulled out a reference book, and with each detail of the
watch he gave me over the phone, I could scarcely believe what
I was
hearing,” recalls Niess. It was a prized “triple case” watch—three
different gold cases held the actual timepiece. The inner case
was made by the lost art of “repoussé,” a delicate
process of tapping a thin sheet of gold over a raised mold to create
a detailed design. The maker was Cabrier, the peerless 17th- and
18th-century French watchmaker of kings and European aristocracy.
“When I thought I might have the watch identified, I saw
it had multiple stars by its name in my reference book,” says
Niess. “Only
two similar watches existed: one in a London museum, another in
an Amsterdam museum. I knew then it could possibly be one of the
rarest watches in the world.”
From what Humphries said, Niess guessed the woman had no idea what
she might have. “I asked him, ‘What condition is she
in? This could be quite a shock.’ ” Humphries convinced
her she should take the watch to Niess, as there was no way over
the phone for Niess to be sure what she had.
One week later, the woman (who wishes to remain anonymous) showed
up in Niess’s small shop on Main Street. She put an old,
square cookie box on the counter. “I opened the box and took
out a felt bag—the kind used to hold silverware—and
removed the watch,” says Niess. “It was like an elephant
fell on my chest. I needed an inhaler.”
Like Humphries had said, it was big—six times the size of
an ordinary pocket watch. The outside gold case was covered in
hand-tooled sharkskin, scored with approximately 50 tiny cups that
had once held pearls. The middle case was gold repoussé featuring
an image of the goddess Venus rising out of the ocean surrounded
by cherubs, waves, and seashells. The inner case repoussé held
the gilded visage of the “Green Man,” a mythic woodland
guardian often carved into valuable clocks or furniture to ward
off thieves. Inside the watch face, covering the inner workings,
were hand-carved gold cutouts of exotic birds and a tropical pineapple,
with a pink diamond affixed to the pivot cap for the gears. The
artistry and craftsmanship transcended anything Niess had seen.
Niess quickly recognized it as a “fusée,” or
chain driven, watch. As the watch stem was wound, tiny, hand-cut
links of a chain moved along a tapered cone, pulling the gear train.
No watches had been made that way in more than 100 years. Niess
also saw it was a remarkable “quarter-hour repeater,” meaning
it could tell the owner, who might be somewhere too dark to see
the watch face, the time within 15 minutes. When the stem was pressed,
a tiny bell in the watch would toll the hour of the day, then a
second bell, using double strikes, would indicate the quarter,
half, or three-quarter hour.
Niess was disappointed to find out nothing on the watch worked,
and probably hadn’t for a century or more. However, his second
teacher—an elderly clock maker Niess calls “the last
of a dying breed”—had shown him how to repair a fusée
watch. Niess knew that this skill was exceedingly rare; only a
handful of people in the world had the ability to repair an 18th-century
fusée. While the woman had brought the watch to him for
an appraisal, he knew he might be able to offer her something more:
a fully functioning watch of far greater value.
Niess tried to stay composed. He held in his hands one of the finest
watches ever made, a dream-come-true moment. And he had a customer
who was looking to him for help. He told the woman the watch was
extremely valuable, so much so he would have to call some of the
foremost appraisers in the country to get an estimated price. He
said he thought he could repair the watch, greatly boosting its
value, but she would have to trust him if he had it in his possession;
he could not afford insurance to cover the loss of such a valuable
commodity.
On Niess’s advice, the woman took the watch home and thought
about her options while he made some discreet calls. As he suspected,
appraisers were amazed. One said it could be “the rarest
find of the century,” and another put the price tag at $3
million if the watch was in working order. Niess gave the woman
the news, plus the names of the top auction houses if she chose
to contact them on her own. After a number of days, the woman called
Niess and said she’d decided to trust him with the watch
while he repaired it for her.
He and his wife began looking for a secret place away from his
home or office to do the work. “I told no one else about
the watch, and asked for complete confidentiality from the appraisers,
but you never know,” says Niess.
Several views of the rare watch that Paul Niess had the privilege of repairing. Photos by L. Renée Boyd, Avalon Portraits.
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When the woman brought the watch back to Chico, Niess’s life
changed. For two weeks he went into semi-seclusion, painstakingly
taking apart the more than 300 pieces of the watch, and photographing
every step he took. “The entire watch had to be dismantled,” he
explains. “It was the most difficult repair job of my life.” At
the same time, Niess felt it was a great honor and privilege to
work on such an exquisite timepiece. “It was truly a religious
experience,” he says.
Niess’s appreciation for the watch deepened even more when
the woman produced a sheaf of old letters about its former owners,
and allowed him to keep them while he did his repair work. Not
only was the watch an extraordinary piece, but it had a history
to match. In his spare moments, Niess pored over the letters—some
in hard-to-decipher, antiquated calligraphy—to piece together
the story of the watch.
The watch was commissioned in 1719 by Sir Thomas Tracy, a member
of the British House of Lords. The Tracy family were originally
high-born nobility in France, known there as “de Tracy.” By
the 18th century, they were cousins to kings and queens on both
sides of the English Channel. Amid a long line of scholars, soldiers,
and scalawags, the best known was William Tracy, one of the four
knights who were said to have assassinated Thomas à Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170.
The watch was bequeathed to Sir Thomas Tracy’s second son:
a consolation prize, as the eldest son inherited the family fortune.
The younger Tracy, watch in hand, left Britain for the New World.
Befitting the Tracy pedigree, his American-born son, named Frederick,
fought for his newfound land in the Revolutionary War and became
a captain in the Continental Army and a member of George Washington’s
inner circle.
The next known owner of the watch was Frederick Augustus Tracy,
perhaps the captain’s grandson. A lieutenant in the Union
Army, he fought in many battles of the Civil War. On June 29, 1862,
Tracy barely survived the Battle of Savage’s Station in Virginia,
where General McClellan’s troops struggled to repulse the
Confederates under Robert E. Lee. Worried he would be captured
if the tide turned, on July 9 Lt. Tracy gave his most important
possessions, including his watch, to an aide, who was instructed
to steal back to New York, where Tracy’s father lived. Tracy
also gave the aide an impassioned letter about the fighting he
had seen, so there would be a written record of the war in the
event of his demise.
Fortunately, Tracy made it out of Virginia, as did the aide and
his precious cargo. Sadly, however, that is where the colorful
chronicle of the watch and its owners ended. The next reference
was to 1945, when the last Tracy descendant, the elderly woman
without children, gave the watch away.
After two weeks of tedious, anxious work, Niess had done all he
could to the watch. His efforts had included building a replacement
part for the most delicate gear in the watch, using 18th-century
techniques that made it an absolute replica of the original. “Finally,
I brought the watch to my shop and turned off every clock in the
place, until it was completely silent,” says Niess. “I
pressed on the stem to turn on the repeater. I couldn’t bear
to look. But then there was the most beautiful sound I have ever
heard. A crisp, resonant bell, ringing the hours.”
Niess was ecstatic, and told the woman she could pick up her now
fully functioning watch. When she arrived, they worked out his
repair fee and discussed her next steps. At the time of this writing,
she was negotiating with an undisclosed museum that wished to purchase
the watch for its collection. Niess is not involved in the proceedings,
and not sure he will ever get to see the watch again.
There is a scene in the classic 1963 movie Charade, starring Cary
Grant and Audrey Hepburn, where a long-sought-after fortune is
discovered to be “hiding” in a set of priceless stamps.
Hepburn finds them in the hands of a grateful dealer who was mistakenly
sold the stamps for a pittance a few hours earlier and is calmly
waiting for the rightful owner to claim them. Niess feels a deep
connection with the stamp dealer in the film, who is humbled and
satisfied to have had a brief encounter with perfection. “The
watch was mine for a time,” says Niess. “That was enough.” |
