46,000 HKD
“Minute-repeating” Breguet & Fils a Paris. Made in Switzerland and cased for the English market, Chester hallmarks for 1833. Very fine and extremely rare, minute-repeating, 18K multicolored gold pocket watch. Four-body, “bassine et filets”, the bezels, pendant and bow cast and deeply chased with shells, flowers and scrolls, engine-turnedback. Gold, engine-turned, applied gold radial Roman numerals, vari-colored gold foliate decoration. Gold hands. 43 mm., frosted gilt, full-plate, fusée with chain, verge escapement, three-arm brass balance, blued steel flat balance-spring, piercedand chased continental type balance cock, repeating on two blued steel gongs activated by depressing the pendant.Movement signed.Diam. 56 mm. Notes What is a Minute Repeater? A minute repeating watch tells the time both visually and audibly. A slide on the side of the case, usually near the #9, will activate two hammers in the movement. These hammers strike two gongs curled within the case. First one hammer strikes a gong of lower tonality; it will count out the hours. Then both hammers will strike both gongs alternatively to count out the quarter hours after that hour, and then the second hammer alone striking a gong of higher tonality will count out the minutes after that quarter hour. The repeating mechanism was developed by Daniel Quare. In 1687, he had patented a mechanism that sounded the hours and the quarter hours. The early repeaters used bells. At the end of the 18th century, two bent
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2005-07-10
