Black and grey realistic tattoo of an open pocket watch with a beaded chain on the upper arm, showing the dial, numerals and visible movement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch with chain on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic pocket watch with an open case, showing a detailed clock face with Arabic numerals and a visible movement of gears in the centre. A beaded chain loops around the top and bottom of the watch, with a fob at the lower end. The shading is black and grey, with soft gradients on the case and fine detail in the mechanism.

Realism Upper arm Pocket watch Chain Clock face Gear Numeral

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the step, love, the third slab rocks. Sit yourself down on the bench where the sweet peas used to be, and I'll tell you about the watch, since you've been eyeing my bed by the greenhouse like it owes you money.

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My husband Albert dug that bed in the hard winter of fifty-two. He turned the clay with a fork and found a chain of little black beads and a gentleman's pocket watch lying on its back with the lid hanging open, like a mouth with something to say. The numerals were worn soft with rust and the hands stood at twenty past four. Out of pure nosiness he wound the crown, and the thing started ticking as if it had been waiting for someone to ask.

He kept it on the windowsill above the sink, where the light came through the glass and threw little wheels of brightness across the ceiling. Every morning he checked it against the church clock, and every morning it lost exactly four minutes, no more and no less. He never once took it to a jeweller. He said it wasn't broken, only set for a different hour.

Then one spring he was out here with the hose and stopped mid-spray. The watch had stopped too, hands dead at twenty past four. He stood there until the water ran over his boots. Next morning it was ticking again, and so, I'm told, were the runner beans, which had shot a foot taller overnight.

I've wound it every day since he went. I set it four minutes fast, the way he did, so the garden knows when to wake. Now you've been sitting here long enough that the hands have crept round. You'll want to be off before the beans start looking at you.