William Hughes Appears to have been quite an inventive maker although little is known about him. He seems to have been familiar with the work of the French makers Lepine and Berthoud because his verge watches are often fitted with the micrometric potence adjustment particularly associated with these two French makers. He made watches for the Chinese market and a musical box with built in watch, dated 1769 was sold by Antiquorum, Geneva, April 2, 2000, Lot 383. The watch in this box had an almost identical dial and bezel to the present watch. Ring watches Watchmakers have always been fascinated with the idea of fitting a watch into a ring. Only a few succeeded. In the early days, successful attempts finished on the fingers of Kings, Princes and prelates. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art there is a very early ring watch, dated about 1560 and signed I.W. The Mantua archives contain a letter from James Widman to the Duke of Mantua concerning three ring watches, and quite possibly, one of them is the one in the Metropolitan Museum. In about 1650 Johan Ulrich Schmidt of Augsburg made a ring watch for the Elector Johann Friedrich. In 1764, the young John Arnold presented an extraordinary ring watch to King George III of England. It was a half-quarter repeater that was less than two centimeters in diameter and had 120 parts. The watch brought fame to Arnold and established him as a very capable watchmaker. The Emperor of Russia offered Arnold double what George III had paid, for another such ring, but Arnold refused.