ROSKOPF PATENT Pocket Watch

I want to find out more information about the ROSKOPF PATENT pocket watch as shown in the photos above, but so far to no veil. Anyone can help me on getting information on the value & history of this watch? Any help will be appreciated, as this pocket watch has special meanings to me.

I only know it is a Swiss made watch made by a German watch-maker. This is what I got from the internet.

Georges Frederic Roskopf was born the15th March of 1813 at Niderwiller .In 1829, at the age of sixteen, George travelled to La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland, where he undertook a three year apprenticeship as a sales clerk with Mairet & Sandoz, a firm selling hardware and watchmaker sundries.Later, in 1834, he became apprenticed as a watchmaker to J. Biber, a firm also in La Chaux de Fonds.In 1835, financed by his wife, he set up his own watchmaker business on Leopold Robert Street. This firm worked as "etablisseur", - a company that buys watch components and assembles them. A son, Fritz Edouard was born the same year.

In 1855, again, Roskopf set up his own business together with his son, Fritz Edouard and Henry Gindraux as ROSKOPF, GINDRAUX & Co. Roskopf was an idealist who dreamed of making good quality, low cost watches for the working man. After two years, his son left him to open his own watch business in Geneva while Gindraux left him to become director of the watch making school of Neuchatel.

In 1860 G.F. Roskopf began to design a watch that could be sold for 20 Swiss francs (then a week's pay of an unskilled laborer) and still be of excellent quality, simple and solid. He called this watch "montre proletaire" (laborer's watch). At first, Roskopf met indifference and hostility among the watchmakers of the area, who were still working as a home industry and who did not wish to make a watch, suitable for mass production.

It is said, that in 1866 Roskopf ordered two boxes of ebauches (= raw watch movements) from Emile Roulet and asked Gustave Rosselet to make escapements. Both refused to take his orders. He finally succeeded in producing his watch in 1867, using ebauches and cases from the MALLERAY WATCH CO., and parts from many other makers, and having them assembled in Damprichard, France, by M. Chatelain. The original order to MALLERAY was 2,000 watches. By the end of 1867 he was in business and by 1870 he had ordered 20,000 ebauches.

Here is the entry for Georges Frederic Roskopf in Wikipedia: Georges Frederic Roskopf. It says he died in 1889, while the pocket watch was said to be made in 1896 (if 1896 on the back of the pocket watch actually indicates the manufacturing year), so this watch must be from one of his successors.

By the way, the pocket watch is still working, although not too accurate. It becomes about 5-10mins faster in a day's time :)

Another link: http://www.musketeer.ch/watches/roskopf.html

To my frustration, I couldn't any photo showing exactly the same pocket watch as the one in pictures above.

Drought

When I arrived in Guangzhou on 20 Dec 2007, it had been two months since it last rained. The province was facing a severe drought in recent history. Farmers are having a hard time this year. Many agricultural produces are expected to have a poor harvest this year.

Water levels are dangerously low in rivers, reservoires almost dried up. People feeling the pinch of the drought while food prices are hitting their pockets.

Should we blame global warming for the drought? Mmmh.....

Wealth Protection

Inflation in 2007 was high in China. Having experienced such inflation back in 1980s, people in China are very aware of wealth protection by buying real assets, to hedge against the fall of the otherwise useless money.

All real assets, especially those non-renewable assets, such as jade, precious & semi-precious stones are in high demand. The hard currency - gold, is in high demands, too. Swiss gold bars are hot stuff in China. They sell like hot cakes.

In contrast, people in Singapore tend to complain a lot of the recent high inflation, but few seem to have anything to hedge against inflation, other than their investments, which are stocks, bonds and other financial instruments. Of course, they have CPF too. However, the question I have is, if there is ever a high inflation caused by unstable political scenarios, or imminence of war, do Singaporeans have any real assets to protect their wealth?

People here like to buy consumables, such as electronics. The latest handphones, latest computers. We all know electronics will only depreciate, rather than appreciate, over time. In time of war, how much would your compute fetch? Would anyone be willing to exchange some food or water with you for your computer? or your memory card? or your handphone? Indians and Malays may still do well. The gold chains, bracelets will help them get through, for a while at least.

Many think they have lots of money, in the banks. But hey, those money nowadays is nothing more than a couple of numbers formed by some pixels on that LCD screen. If there is a war, the numbers die together with the LCD screen.

Pirates & Fakes

Pirates

A year ago, there were lots of people and shops selling pirated DVDs in the streets of Guangzhou. It was not uncommon to see shops with pirated DVDs piled from floor to ceiling. They did it openly, nobody seemed to be bothered. Then there were people who lined the main streets with a portable table or something, again selling pirated DVDs. It would be difficult for you NOT to bump into one pirated DVDs seller when you walked down the streets.

In just a year's time, things had changed. You can still get pirated DVDs, the pirated ones are still as good as the originals, or as updated as the originals, but you hardly see anyone selling pirated DVDs along the main streets. There are no more shops. You have to go into the side streets to hunt for them. They are still aplenty, but some hunting is needed. Some provision shops will just place a small box outside their shop with pirated DVDs in it. Only when people approach them, the sellers would then come out to serve the customers. Some shops don't even display the pirated DVDs. Only the 'insiders' can come and ask for some sources.

I am not very sure whether there was some change of policy in the past one year, or the law had been enforced. The scene is vastly different. Hollywood movie producers should be at least pleased to see this, although a lot more has to be done to meet their demand.

Fakes

In general, I don't have the habit of checking whether the money is genuine or not, especially when I get my changes. A couple of days ago, when I was sorting out the bunch of loose changes I had in my purse, I found a special piece of 50 cents note. My attention was attracted to it when I touched the note. So smooth! Flawless! I took a closer look. It was a 'brank new' banknote. I touched the surface again, very smooth. Then I took out another 50 cents note and touched it. You could feel the textures on the surface.

Do I need to tell you what happened? Probably you already know I got a fake 50 cents banknote! My gosh! I never expected people will be this mean to actually produce fake 50 cents banknotes! Read carefully, 50 CENTS! NOT 50 YUAN!

Living in mainland China is a challenge. You never know when and how you will be cheated.

Just a reminder to myself, in the next few days, I will write about how I got cheated when I bought some small items, and wealth protection as well as inflation in mainland China.

Happy New Year 2008

First entry of year 2008. Just want to say HAPPY NEW YEAR to everybody. Wishing everybody a fruitful year ahead.

I will write more about what I did, what I saw during my holidays in the coming days.

Surprise

Hahaha.... I didn't expect my prediction would be this close. Yesterday, I said the STI will be around 3360 points, and today, STI closed at 3357.34 points. Unfortunately I am not rewarded for close predictions :P

Wanted to scoop some STI put warrants, but I was too stingy and too indecisive that I missed a good opportunity to get it at $0.205. That warrant subsequently went up to 0.21. I gave up. I don't want to get myself some heart attack when I come back from my holidays. I know how volatile the warrants are. Better not touch it if I can't monitor its movement closely.

Another surprise is the rise of many of the Reits. MMP reit went up, Mapletree Logistics went up, Suntec Reit went up. They are adding quite a few cents to their prices. The short term GAMMA for these reits are moving up too. What is happening? While some other reits continue their happy down trend. Mmmh.... A big question mark.

What will happen next? I have no idea. The only thing in my mind now is to enjoy my year end holiday. Let's see what bad news will come that can bring STI down to 3000 points or even lower.

Going off for holidays tomorrow. Wish everybody Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you guys next year!

The Rebound

As expected, STI rebounded 15.75 points today. There were some tussling during the session, but STI managed to stage a rebound. The day traders should be happy. Many of them must have scoop some good stocks at a dirt cheap price and then sell them off when the price went higher. The long terms investors may have done some bargain hunting as well. Long term, I mean you have to have the patience and a deep enough pocket for another 5-7 years, plus the opportunity cost.

For this newbie, I will just sit back and relax. Watch the STI go up and down. The show just began. There should be at least 20 episodes in the first season, and this is just Episode 1 of the 1st season.

Tomorrow is the last trading day before the long holiday season starts on 20 Dec 2007. Many people will be leaving for their holidays starting Thursday. The trading volumn is expected to be thin, STI should be stable at around its current level of 3360. However, that also depends on the response of the FED's auction of short-term bonds. The results will be available on 19 Dec (US time).

If anything that you can do, then it will be to get yourself familiar with warrants and Contract for Difference (CFD). Get your accounts ready. It will be nice to have some put warrants if the prices are right.

Disclaimer: Personal opinions only. Act on your own risks. No liabilities assumed.

Bull vs Bear - Round 1

We saw the fight between the bull and the bear in the market today. STI plunged 46 points at start, then it slowly climbed back up 20-30 points. This was the first wave, the plunge was a follow-up of Friday's 178 points drop in the Dow Jones Industry Average (DJIA).

The second wave came when Hong Kong's stock market opened. It saw the Heng Seng Index plunged over 600 points. The STI was down 76 points from last Friday's 3466. Again, it managed to pull itself up for 20-30 points before the close of the morning session.

The third wave came at the opening of the afternoon session. Singapore's November non-oil export data were released. Non-oil export declined 3.4% year-on-year (YoY), -6.0% month-on-month. One of the supporting pillars of Singapore economy, the electronics section, declined 8% YoY. This piece of bad news sent STI down to 3353.56 points at closing.

Winner of the Round 1? Of course the bear. What next? As I said in a previous post, if the STI goes down, it will go down to 3300 support level. If 3300 support level is broken, then STI will continue its downtrend all the way down to 3000. However, in the next couple of days, I do expect STI to rebound a bit before it goes down again. Potentially a bull-trap.

I count myself lucky that I sold off all my shares a few days ago while STI was still holding up well. I don't think I will ever touch any stock until the STI settles around 3000. Anyway, I am off for holidays in the next couple of days. There is no point buying anything right now. Whatever stock it is, no matter how good that stock is, you most probably will be able to buy that stock at a lower price in the next couple of months.

No point buying does not mean no point monitoring the STI. It is a good opportunity for those who are new to monitor the market, do mock investments to test out your strategies.

Ok, let's see what will happen tomorrow at round 2 of the fight :)


Disclaimer: The above is just my personal opinion. No liabilities for me to bear :)