John Wilter was an 18th-century watchmaker who had his name used fictitiously on Dutch forgeries of English watches.[1] The majority of the watches bearing his name are Dutch forgeries, but there are higher quality ones that he made himself. The Dutch forgeries undercut competitors from London by about 50%. Some have spelling mistakes such as 'John Vilter'. The British Museum lists his activity dates as between 1760 and 1784.[2]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has 2 watches with the name 'John Wilter'.[3]
After finding a watch labelled 'John Wilter, London' which had characteristics that it made it appear both as an English and Dutch watch, Rebecca Struthers looked his name up in a book, Loom's Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World, which listed Wilter as "perhaps a ficticious name".
In an 1817 hearing in House of Commons, a watchmaker named Henry Clarke spoke of Wilter:This caused Struthers to realise that John Wilter was simultaneously real and fictitious. Struthers suggested that the name was created by a Dutch merchant that wanted a forgery to sound as if it was made in England. She suggested that the merchant originally commissioned John Wilter, but realised that creating forgeries elsewhere in Europe with his John Wilter's name would yield him higher profits.