$103,500
International Watch Co. , Schaffhausen, "Grande Complication", No. 18/ 50, Ref. 3770. Produced in a limited edition of 50 examples in 1993. Very fine and extremely rare, oversized, astronomic, minute-repeating, self-winding, platinum gentleman’s wristwatch with square button chronograph, registers, secular perpetual calendar, moon phases and a platinum IWC buckle. Three-body, solid, polished, case back with screws, pyramidal bezel, curved straight lugs, screwed-down crown, sapphire crystal. White with applied yellow gold indexes, subsidiary dials for the seconds, the 12-hour and 30-minute registers, the date, days of the week, and the months, apertures for the four-digit year and the phases of the moon. Yellow gold “bâton” hands. Cal 79091, rhodium plated, "fausses-côtes" decoration, 68 jewels, straight line lever escapement, monometallic balance, shock-absorber, self-compensating flat balance spring, repeating on gongs by activating slide on the band. Dial, case and movement signed.Diam. 42 mm. Height 16 mm. Notes Schaffhausen In the 1870s, American-born Florentine Ariosto Jones, who had been appointed director of the E. Howard & Co. watchmaking factory in Boston at the early age of 27, decided to manufacture high-quality movements and watch parts for the American market using American technology and skilled labor from Switzerland, where wages were comparatively low. However, the skilled workers in the Geneva region and in the remote valleys of the Jura mountains re
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2004-12-01
