Important Collectors Watches, Pocket ...

Geneva, May 10, 2009

LOT 233

Watch with Six Complications Lecoultre & Co., Swiss, No. 4459. Made between 1880 and 1885. Extremely fine and very rare, large and heavy, minute-repeating, 18K rose gold hunting-cased, keyless pocket watch with retrograde perpetual calendar and phases of the moon.

CHF 30,000 - 40,000

USD 26,000 - 35,000 / EUR 20,000 - 26,000

Sold: CHF 36,000

C. Four-body, "bassine", solid, polished, pusher on the band for advancing the calendar. Hinged gold cuvette. D. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute track with five-minute Arabic numerals, retrograde date sector with Arabic numerals in the upper half, below an oval aperture for phases of the moon, days of the week aperture at IX o'clock, month aperture at III o'clock, subsidiary seconds dial. Blued steel double spade hands. M. 45,3 mm (20'''), frosted gilt, 31 jewels, counterpoised straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring with terminal curve, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Movement signed under the hour hammer. Diam. 59 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 1-01

As new

HANDS Original

Notes

The present watch has survived in superb condition and is particularly interesting because it exhibits a very rarely found and sophisticated horological feature. The perpetual calendar with retrograde date is extremely uncommon and was made by very few workshops including Breguet and LeCoultre. A very similar watch signed by Marius LeCoultre was sold by Antiquorum, Geneva, November 11, 2001, lot 111. Due to the extreme similarity of this watch to the present watch it is very likely that the maker was actually Marius LeCoultre for LeCoultre & Co.
Marius Lecoultre
A watchmaker and repairer as well as a dealer in fine watches. A highly reputed firm, founded in 1848, that made complicated watches of superior quality. Lecoultre perfected a chronograph with vertical displacement of the engagement wheel. He received an honorable mention at the Geneva "concours de chronométrie" in 1887. He showed complicated and precision watches at the Chicago Universal Exhibition of 1893, and also took part in the National Exhibition in Geneva in 1896.