16,100 HKD
Deutsche Präcisions-Uhren Fabrik Urania, München, circa 1890. Fine and rare 14K rose gold keyless antimagnetic pocket watch with special escapement. Four-body, "bassine et filets", polished, gold hinged cuvette. White enamel, Arabic numerals, outer minute ring with five-minute red Arabic figures, subsidiary sunk seconds. Gold "Louis XV" hands. Notes In the 19th century, and before, if a watch became magnetized, without modern electromagnetic coils, watchmakers straggled, often in vain, to demagnetize them. They had numerous methods, none of which really worked. One of the most curious ones was to burry the parts in the ground in glass container. During 1880's watch companies experimented with different alloys for the escapement to make watches as much as possible antimagnetic. Patek Philippe for instance made two in 1881, Nos. 62051 and 6252, very similar in he construction to the present one. It appears that Urania also took magnetism seriously into consideration.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2002-06-08
