119,000 CHF
Paul Ditisheim, La Chaux-de-Fonds, No. 29099. Especially made for the Exposition Universelle de Paris in1900.Extremely rare and very fine, minute repeating, 18K yellow gold gentleman's wristwatch. three-body, solid, polished, straight lugs, gold screwed bars. Notes On the bridge of the repeater main spring is engraved 'Grand Prix, Paris 1900'. This watch was presented at the ParisUniversal Exhibition of 1900, obtaining a 'Grand Prix'. It is a high-precision movement of great quality. We canconsider this piece as one of the oldest minute repeaters ever made, the second, in fact, after Omega's 1892 minuterepeater.Paul Ditisheim (1868-1945)was born on October 28th, 1868, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, and died in Geneva, on February 7th, 1945. Afterearly training in Switzerland, he studied in Berlin and Paris, arriving in 1891 in England, where he worked as atechnician at the Rotherham factory in Coventry.He started his own manufacture at Chaux-de-Fonds in 1892, specializing in very high-precision watches and incomplicated watches. Success in both spheres followed rapidly, and he won many honors for adjusted watches,especially at Neuchâtel and Kew Observatories.He collaborated with Dr. Ch. E. Guillaume in the use of both the Guillaume 'integral' balance and the elinvar-type ofauto-compensating balance spring. He also contributed many papers to scientific and horological journals, and wasassociated with Dr. Paul Woog, an oil chemist, in the development of Chrona
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2000-11-19
