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There has been a couple discussions on Watson sights over the years. I have a few and finally got around to putting together the little bit of information I've found out about them. These sight were patented by Thomas Archer Watson a Canadian.

BillR posted about a Watson front sight on an 1899 that was marked "Watson, Niagara Falls, Canada, Sept 06". topics/1043407/Re_Watson_Sights

That is the only reference to a Watson sight with an address on it I've found, I assume that to be an early address for the company, I found an old auction listing for two undated ‘Watson Gunsight Company’ catalogs with different addresses; 8 Richmond Street E. Toronto, Canada and 62 Dundas Street East, Toronto 2, Canada. Thomas Archer Watson's address on early patents is Creemore, Ontario, Canada; on later ones Toronto.

I saw one of these sights wrongly credited to 'Watson & Son' located in London, England. They were a optical company and made optical gun sights for artillery pieces during WWI - watson-sons-g-s-telescope-x8

Searching for information on Watson sights may also turn up a US company that made gun sights, the 'Watson Luminous Gunsight Co'. of New York City. The patents are by Earle F Watson from Dumont, New Jersey. One of his patents was for clip on “luminous sights for use in the night time” for the Colt 1911 and the Browning machine gun. A set, new in the box, for a Browning 1917 Mark II sold on eBay August of 2020, the only set I’ve ever seen.
uspto.gov/01319313 Oct 21, 1919
Other patents for gun sights by Earle F Watson-
US1307646 (same design also has French patent FR494947), US1307647 June 24, 1919; Canadian CA201841 July 07, 1920; Great Britain GB141296 and GB141302; US1361768 Dec 7, 1920, not in his name but he was assigned ½.

Thomas Watson started out making front sights based on US patent 830868 filed in July of 1905, also patented in Canada CA96557A. The two longer sights are the same, one is shown with the hood removed.


Later Watson started making eyepieces based on Canadian patent CA145473 filed July of 1912, I could not find a US patent for this. These had the aperture made from very thin sheet metal and then crimped into the eyepiece. The marked ones I've seen were made to fit Lyman's and others with the same threads. Tang sights came much later with the US patent being filed July of 1927 and they take eyepieces that have threads that will not fit a Lyman, they are a 1/4-32 thread (from my measurements). All the Watson eye pieces I've seen that fit Lyman's are marked Watson, the ones I have that will fit a Watson are not marked, something to be aware of if you need an eyepiece for a Watson.... make sure it's not marked Watson!

From the left - Savage 99, Savage 1903, Marlin 22 (eye piece probably not a Watson), Winchester 1903, Stevens 425 (eye piece possibly not a Watson).



Two eye pieces I do not think are Watson's. The large aperture in the stems is also made by crimping in a thin disk.



Canadian patent CA144473


I've only seen Watson sights listed in A.G. Parker catalogs, the catalogs I have after the name change to Parker-Hale do not list them but have their own 'Watson Type'. I have never found the tang sights listed anywhere.

The listing of No 2 & No 8 front sights suggest there are other variations to be found.

Here's one other variation for comparison( on the left), it's marked Watson (..so, if you paid attention above, that means it won't fit a Watson... it fits a Lyman & others). It's a standard looking No1 size but has a quite complex thin double thickness metal snap on cover that holds a lens. The one in it appears to be just clear glass and does not magnify, I am confused by there being an arrow pointing to a 'top' on something that's perfectly round? Looking through it I can't see what difference it makes unless they wanted to make sure you could read their company name. The lens has a metal casing and is removable. I have not found any information on this, I assume these may have came with a set of different colored lenses.






All but one of the tang sights I have had problems with the spring that holds the post upright, some springs were roughly made replacements and most were warped which resulted in the post being very loose when up. The amount of bend put on these springs permanently bows them due to the short length. I tried different spring stock to make replacements with all taking a permanent bow when the sight was folded a couple times. I finally found that using three layers of very thin spring stock works, all but one of my sights now have that.

The 99 sight had even more problems. The parts have very loose tolerances and the threads can be disengaged if the elevation nut is pushed reward – everything is held in position by a small spring that pushes the elevation nut forward, this take all play out of the sight - that spring was broken on the 99 sight. After trying several spring stocks and having them break when trying to duplicate it I found a semi-hard stainless steel that was used for making cutters for thin plastic film that can be formed and still has enough spring properties to work when not required to flex much. Part of the problem with this one is that some of the solder used to hold the round part of the post in the square got into the channel for the bottom of the spring, I had to taper the bottom of the spring to fit into the side of the narrowed channel. The sight now is very tight and adjusts smoothly.

All the parts with the three leaf replacement post spring and the strip used to make the small tension springs.



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