Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Du Rhône, May 13, 2007

LOT 280

"An Important Banking Family" Breguet, No. 441, "chronomètre de poche", sold to a member of an important banking family on October 17, 1844, for 1,500 Francs. Very fine and extremely rare, 18K gold "garde temps" pocket watch with detent chronometer escapement, heavy 18K gold chain and gold double-ended Breguet ratchet key. Accompanied by a Breguet fitted box and certificate.

CHF 50,000 - 60,000

EUR 30,000 - 37,000 / USD 40,000 - 50,000

Sold: CHF 76,700

C. Three-body, "bassine et filets", solid, master mark "J*P", engine-turned bezel and band, the back engineturned "à grains d'orge". Gold cuvette with aperture for winding and secured by a screw. D. White enamel by Droz, with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds at 12, secret signature above 6, secured by a single steel screw. Yellow gold "Breguet" hands. M. 46 mm., 20''', frosted gilt, half-plate, cylindrical steel pillars with blued steel screws, fusee and chain, Harrison's maintaining power, Earnshaw-type fully jeweled escapement, 16-tooth escape wheel, pivoted spring detent with secondary parallel mounted detent to keep the detent in tension, steel roller and pallet, free-sprung bimetallic "Z" balance with temperature and meantime adjusment screws, blued steel helical balance spring with terminal curves, mobile stud bearer. Dial, cuvette and movement signed. Case with Paris gold marks for post 1838. Diam. 53 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-53-01

Good

Reprinted

HANDS Original

Notes

This watch was made as a high-precision timepiece, the balance with blued steel arm and inner laminae and adjustment screws only, is the type used in Breguet marine chronometers dating from the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Louis Clement Francois Breguet was responsible for the development of these on his return from Switzerland. The detent of the present watch is interesting and unusual in that a second separate detent spring is mounted above and parallel to the detent and acts to keep tension on the detent. This has a similar operational effect to the detent arrangement in the Peto cross detent escapement.