About a decade ago, while he was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, John Warren started collecting pocket watches made by the Cornell Watch Company, a short-lived but influential 19th-century brand that had its factory a couple of miles from campus.
“It was like a little secret for me,” said Mr. Warren, who is now 31. At that point, the brand wasn’t mentioned often, he added, “except in really nerdy pocket watch circles.”
Mr. Warren later became a lawyer, and his obsession with Cornell eventually went beyond collecting: In 2023, he acquired the rights to the brand’s name and formed, with his wife, Chrissy, and Garrison Jones, his college roommate, a modern watch brand that he said was deeply inspired by the original.
“We’re avid collectors, and we thought that other people would want to hear the story of the brand,” Mr. Warren said.
In late 2023, the new Cornell Watch Company unveiled its first release, the 1870 CE — CE stands for classic enamel, in reference to the grand feu (in English, “big fire”) technique used on its dial.
The 39-millimeter automatic stainless-steel timepiece does look a bit like a vintage pocket watch mounted on an alligator strap. The initial run of 10 pieces, each at $10,750, was sold in April. (More than 300 people wanted to buy one, so a drawing was held to select the winners.)
The original had a white dial, but versions with blue and black dials are planned for November. The price has been increased to $11,950, but Mr. Warren said that a less expensive timepiece, Model 01, was due next year.
Each 1870 CE sale includes a $500 donation to the Horological Society of New York, earmarked for watchmaking scholarships. The goal, Mr. Warren said, is “to help support American watchmaking and help revive it, and help not only tell its story but push it forward.”
The brand renaissance began to take shape in early 2021, when Mr. Warren planned to commission a watch for his father from Roland G. Murphy, a well-respected watchmaker in Mount Joy, Pa. That watch was never made, but Mr. Murphy did produce five watches, based on vintage Cornell design, for the Warrens, Mr. Jones and Mr. Warren’s parents. It became the basis of the 1870 CE.
“When we started this out, we weren’t really looking to bring it to market,” Chrissy Warren said. “This wasn’t supposed to be a commercialized thing. It was really built out of a love of Chicago, of Hyde Park, of John figuring out all this history.”
Starting the company cost about $150,000, Mr. Warren said, but the name, which was in the public domain, was free. And a spare room in the Warrens’ home in the River North neighborhood of Chicago serves as its headquarters.
In June, Mr. Warren gave up law to focus full time on Cornell; Ms. Warren works in finance but devotes nights and weekends to the company. Mr. Jones has stayed involved occasionally.
The brand has begun to attract attention from watch experts.
“It seems like they’ve gone about everything the right way,” said Andy Green, a founder of “OT: The Podcast,” a horology series based in Melbourne, Australia, that featured the brand in June. “They’ve not upset people. They’ve not done anything too controversial. They’ve been very gentle with their approach. They’ve got a really patient approach to building something.”
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