Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces

Geneva, May 10, 2015

LOT 87

AUDEMARS PIGUET WATCH WITH 9 COMPLICATIONS ONE OF A SPECIAL SERIES OF COMPLICATED WATCHES FOR THE GERMAN MARKET Audemars Piguet & Co., No. 48355. Made for Dürrstein & Co., Dresden, circa 1900. Extremely fine and important, large, heavy 18K rose gold, minute-repeating, hunting-cased, keyless, pocket watch with split-seconds Chronograph, instantaneous 30-minute register, perpetual calendar and phases of the moon. Accompanied by a period box.

CHF 55,000 - 75,000

HKD 440,000 - 600,000 / USD 57,000 - 78,000

Sold: CHF 81,250

Four-body, "Louis XV", massive, polished, the front cover with engraved foliate monogram, push button for the start/stop and return to zero functions of the chronograph at 1, for the split-seconds and rejoin at 11. Hinged gold cuvette, glazed gold-rimmed cover over the movement. Seven-piece white enamel with Arabic numerals, outer minute track, outermost chronograph track with fifths of a second divisions and red Arabic five second/minute numerals, four subsidiary dials for days of the week, date, months concentric with leap year indication and instantaneous 30-minute register, seconds and aperture for the phases of the moon. Pink gold Louis XV hands. 21''', matte gilt, 31 jewels, calibrated straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance with gold and platinum temperature and meantime adjustment screws, blued steel Breguet balance spring with overcoil, swan-neck micrometer regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Case and movement numbered.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

DIAM. 59 mm. This large and extremely high-grade complicated watch is in exceptional condition with heavy-gauge pink gold case and perfect multi-piece enamel dial. It is one of a series of 35 complicated watches made by Audemars Piguet between 1895 and 1912 especially for Dürrstein & Co. of Dresden, one of Audemars Piguet's most important clients whose owner Johannes Dürrstein had founded the Glashütte "Union" watch manufacture in 1893. All the watches in this small series of highly complicated watches supplied by Audemars Piguet were unsigned and were consciously made very much in the German "Glashütte" style. The Louis XVtype case and stepped multi-piece dial are very distinctively in the German taste. This superb complicated watch is likely to appeal to both collectors of fine German watches and to those who appreciate the best of Swiss horology. Literature: An almost identical watch is illustrated in Audemars Piguet, Brunner, Pfeiffer-Belli & Wehrli, 1993, p. 52. p. 52 of the Audemars Piguet book by Brunner, Pfeiffer-Belli, Wehrli 9 Complications : ? Minute-repeating ? Chronograph ? Split-seconds ? Register ? Perpetual calendar ? Date ? Days of the week ? Months ? Moon phases