Bangalore Watch Company Introduces the Forty-Seven, their First Pocket Watch

I’m not quite sure that it would be correct to say that pocket watches are “having a moment,” but I’ve certainly thought and written about pocket watches more in 2026 than in any year I can remember. Mostly that’s due to an approximately two week stretch earlier this year when the entire watch community was focused like a laser beam on the Royal Pop. I’m not exactly sure what happened since (has anyone actually seen a Royal Pop in the wild?) but that Swatch x Audemars Piguet collab remains one of the biggest stories of the year, even if they flew a little too close to the sun. There was also this Timex desk clock, which is basically a pocket watch with an integrated stand, and of course this new Horological Machine from MB&F, which is not a pocket watch at all, but exists in that “watch as desk object” world and kind of begs the user to take the strap off the case for mounting purposes, leaving you with what amounts to a pocket watch without the chain or lanyard. 

OK, that last one might be a stretch. But nevertheless, when a press release from Bangalore Watch Company came through to let me know that the India based brand had created a midcentury style pocket watch, I started to think about the possibility that we might be in the midst of a trend. I don’t actually think we are – pocket watches perhaps are a little over the line on the anachronistic spectrum to catch on with enough people to make this a thing in 2026, but it’s a nice looking clock regardless. 

Bangalore Watch Company says that the new Forty-Seven pocket watch is “inspired by the beginning of modern India.” It’s the brand’s first pocket watch, and honestly a hard right turn in style after a series of watches rooted in contemporary design. But the ethos of the brand is to explore Indian culture throughout its history, and the country is changing so rapidly that it’s easy to get caught up in more recent history. The Forty-Seven reaches a little further back to the middle part of the 20th century when that period of rapid growth began in earnest, and pocket watches would have been quite a bit more common. 

What we have here is a pocket watch with a 46mm stainless steel case with a rose gold PVD finish, running on a Ronda quartz movement with a subsidiary seconds subdial at 6:00. The dial has a linen texture in an off-white tone, and the brand says that it was inspired by India’s midcentury self-reliance movement. The cathedral hands and Arabic numerals are filled with “old-radium” colored lume that nicely matches the tone of the dial. 

The Forty-Seven includes a lanyard style leather strap with a rose gold clip matching the tone of the case. Bangalore will also offer personalized caseback engraving on the solid caseback. 

The retail price of the Forty-Seven is set at $1,250. My gut reaction to the price is that it might be on the high side given the quartz movement and the likely very niche interest in a pocket watch to begin with. I love the idea of having an interesting pocket watch to double as a desk clock, but a quartz movement defeats at least some of the nostalgic pull of a pocket watch to begin with, and pricing it over $1,000 puts it beyond the category of “impulse buy” for most people, I suspect. And let’s face it, these watches are destined to be used as decor over timekeeping in the way they were intended. Even many serious pocket watch collectors and enthusiasts do not carry them daily. 

Still, I think Bangalore has created a nice looking watch with the Forty-Seven, and surely they’ll find an audience of enthusiasts for whom this piece resonates. That has always been the appeal of small brands like Bangalore Watch Company, and the microbrand movement more generally. It’s all about finding the people who are into the weird, anachronistic stuff in precisely the right way for a given watch. Over and over again I’ve learned that even the watches that leave me cold (and this one doesn’t leave me cold – it’s just the retail price I’m bumping against) have enthusiast supporters that love them. Bangalore Watch Company

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