13,800 CHF
John Roger Arnold, London, No. 3022, circa 1810.Fine and very interesting silver pocket chronometer with special compensation. Three-body, "Consular", polished, fixed cuvette. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute dot divisions, subsidiary seconds. Gold "spade" hands. 47 mm, hinged, gilt full plate, cylindrical pillars, fusee and chain, Arnold spring detent escapement, plain three-arm steel balance, blued steel flat balance spring, unusual adjustable bimetallic compensation frame, jeweled to the fourth wheel, escapement with endstones.Signed on dial and movement.Diam. 58 mm. Notes It is rare to find an unconverted Arnold escapement; it is even more rare to find one with such unusual unrecorded compensation. In a regular compensation curb all parts are made fixed and are installed as such; they cannot be adjusted, and they either work correctly or not. In this watch, the compensation can be adjusted by changing the point at which it acts on the regulator pin: the closer to the center, the greater the compensation, the farther away, the lesser the compensation. It seems thathe present compensation might be Arnold's answer to Earnshaw's sugar tongue compensation.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2001-11-11
