Keyless works

The keyless works is the train of wheels, pinions and levers between the crown and the movement, and it does two jobs with one control. A patent assigned to Ebauches Bettlach SA, "Winding and setting mechanism for watches" (US 3,827,235, filed 18 June 1973), describes a drive pinion "rigidly connected with the stem", a "sliding crown wheel" "cooperating with the ratchet wheel for the winding of the drive spring", and a setting wheel between the drive pinion and the periphery of the movement, coupled to the time indicating means. The stem's axial position decides which of the two the pinion engages.

Christopher Kuenzel's US patent 739,089, "Stem winding and setting watch" (published 15 September 1903), describes the same switch in period language: a two-part stem in which "an outward movement of one of the sections insures the forcing of the clutch out of winding engagement with the barrel and the setting-pinion into setting engagement with the hand-setting train of gearing".

Before this existed, a watch was wound and set with a detachable key. The Science Museum Group's record for a "Pocket Watch with Keyless Winding by Payne & Co, 1845-1855" describes a "Swiss watch, with unusual form of keyless winding mechanism", placing working keyless watches in the mid-nineteenth century. Patek Philippe's own account of its founders states of Adrien Philippe that "in 1842, he invented the keyless mechanism that attracted Patek's attention".

What this Codex does not do: name a first. The Science Museum record claims no priority, and Patek Philippe's date of 1842 is the company's own account of its own founder. The patents cited here are primary documents for the mechanism, not for who built one first.