Possibly a short story. I may have read it in the 1980s, and I had the impression that it was already old then. It may have taken place anywhere from the mid 1800s to the 1960s. A man had a stopwatch or pocket watch that could freeze time for everyone but himself. He went to a fancy party, stopped time, and stole everyone’s jewels. At the end, he dropped the watch and it shattered irreparably. About the ending, I should probably add: the watch shatters while time is frozen. So the implication is that he will never be able to un-freeze time again.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
John D MacDonald – the Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything? (Later made into a TV movie)
Perhaps this is Roger Lee Vernon’s “The Stop Watch”?
John D MacDonald wrote a novel with a similar watch called The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, but the plot points didn’t match. However, the Wikipedia entry for that novel mentions Vernon’s story:
“A similar plot line – a man stopping time – already appeared in 1955 in Roger Lee Vernon’s story “The Stop Watch”, included in the collection The Space Frontiers. Vernon treated the theme far more seriously, with his protagonist using the device to commit crimes with impunity and win the Third World War all by himself, and finally suffering a terrible perdition.”
Might be THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH AND EVERYTHING. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl,_the_Gold_Watch_%26_Everything
It also could be this episode of the Twilight Zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Kind_of_a_Stopwatch
During the search I was intrigued by how many stories are out there featuring a pocket watch that can stop time.