Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Nov 16, 2008

LOT 643

Miniature Minute Repeater & Perpetual Calendar Audemars Piguet, Brassus & Genève, made for Cooke & Kelvey, London, No. 2630. The case with London hallmarks for 1884. Unique and exceptionally fine,miniature, astronomic,minute-repeating, 18K gold hunting-cased keyless pocket watch with perpetual calendar, moon phase and lunar calendar.

CHF 62,000 - 82,000

USD 57,000 - 75,000 / EUR 38,000 - 52,000

C. Four-body, ?bassine et filets?, by Alfred Stram (master mark), polished, the back cover engraved with a monogram. D. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, four subsidiary dials for days of the week, date, months, four year cycle and subsidiary seconds concentric with phases of the moon aperture and lunar calendar. Blued steel spade hands. M. 32 mm (14??), frosted gilt, three-quarter plate, calibrated lateral lever escapement fully jeweled in screwed chatons, going train jeweled to the center in screwed chatons, diamond endstone, cut bimetallic compensation balance, free-sprung blued steel Breguet balance spring, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Dial and movement signed, punched ?AP? on the pillar-plate. Diam. 42 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3**

Good

Repair required, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-23-01

Good

Later

HANDS Original

Notes

Audemars Piguet was founded in 1875 by Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet. The two opened a branch in Geneva in 1880. Jules Audemars was the technical manager, and Edward Piguet the financial specialist of the firm. The two managed the company until 1918, when Jules Audemars died at the age of 67; Piguet died the following year. The name Audemars Piguet became synonymous with watches of exceptional quality, superb complications and very thin movements. They manufactured many of the world?s most complicated watches, the majority of which were sold to other manufacturers, who in turn sold them as their own watches. Famous examples are the Universal-Uhr of Uhrenfabrik Union, and the so-called ?grosse piece? which was sold as the ?AstronomicalWatch? by Smith & Son Ltd, of London, both of which were the most complicated watches in world when they were sold, in 1899 and 1914 respectively. They produced the world?s smallest five-minute repeating watch (7???), and in 1915, the first wristwatches with perpetual calendar and moon phases. In 1924, a pocket watch with a movement 1.32 mm thick in 1925, the thinnest lady?s watch in 1960, the thinnest automatic watch, 2.24 mm in 1967, followed by an automatic jump-hour watch with a thickness of 3.05 mm. The finest example of Audemars Piguet?s quest for thinness came in 1986 with the launching of an automatic watch with Tourbillion regulator. Its overall thickness of 4.8 mm was achieved by setting jewels into the case back and utilizing it as a plate.