Hence: (Fig.) Anything of superior quality, as was attributed to the stem-winding watch; esp. used to describe a stirring speech, as in the phrase "a stem-winder of a speech" or "delivered a stem-winder".
... got anything he cares for so much. You can see he's always tickled to death when anybody asks him the time. But do you think he ever lets that watch out'n his own hands? Not much. Let's anybody look at it, and keeps a holt o' the stem-winder. Well, sir, we was all in a saloon up at Circle, and that feller over there—Butts—he bet me fifty dollars that he'd git McQuestion's watch away from him before he left the saloon. An' it was late. McQuestion was thinkin' a'ready about goin' home to that squaw wife that ... — The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
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