Ever heard of a back-winder?

[KarlvonKoln]

The name on the dial is "Etienne Guydt" and the watch is clearly mid-1800s.  But you do not use a key to wind, as you might if it were like other watches of the period and had a hole in the cuvette for such.  You turn the entire back cover to wind it.  Anyone else ever see the like?  I'm curious.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353747541592?hash=item525cff1e58:g:CykAAOSwHDlhe~dD

 

[oldhippy]

Never seen it in a Pocket watch. I have come across something like that in small travel clocks. 

[KarlvonKoln]

Ah yes.  And kitchen timers quite frequently use a similar structure.

I'd love to see pics of the rest of the movement.  Surely this is fairly uncommon.  I go looking for the strangest timepieces I can come across, because every once in a great while I get a very weird piece wanting service, so I like to be as ready as it is possible to be.

[Nucejoe]

Watches with  winding crown on the back plate are also called backwinder.

 

[oldhippy]

Yes I know what you mean. It was always nice when someone would bring in something that you had never seen before. That's why I always say you never stop learning in horology. I'm still learning by coming on here and that is after nearly 30 years as a watch/clock maker.  

[KarlvonKoln]

Very true.  It amazes me sometimes how there is always something new to see or to learn.  Inventers and innovators of the past would sometimes come up with clever solutions, or at least unorthodox ones.  And sometimes the idea would fade out of memory...until...someone posts it in a place like this forum, asking what the heck it is.
I tried to enlarge some pics of that watch to post here.  I'm going to see how they came out. It looks like the thing needs a pendant pusher custom-fabricated for it, unless a period one should turn up.  And it seems to be a pin-set, but that could mean that with the pin held in you would maybe rotate the back to set the time?  I don't know; this thing is strange. But I kind of like it.  If I weren't strapped for cash at present I'd be sorely tempted to snatch it up.