Important Watches, Pocket Watches and...

Noga Hilton Hotel, Nov 13, 2005

LOT 92

?Conical-Motion Pendulum? Fratelli Geiser in Milano. Made circa 1815. Very fine and extremely rare, two-tune musical, gilt bronze and gilt-wood eight-day going mantel clock with one second oscillation conical-motion pendulum.

CHF 35,000 - 45,000

EUR 23,000 - 30,000 / USD 27,000 - 35,000

C. Gilt bronze, sloping sides with pyramidal top, leaf, flower and female mask mounts and the faces of the sun and the moon flanking the dial, cornice with stylized leaf mounts, the whole raised on four tapered fluted pillars with palm-leaf capitals and bases, stepped plinths with bacchic cherub mounts, oval gilt wood base containing the musical movement, raised on bun feet. D. White enamel with ?dauphine? Arabic numerals, outer minute track and Arabic quarter-hour numerals. Blued steel ?oval? hands. M. 112 mm., circular, gilt-brass, going barrel, contrate wheel geared to an inverted ?T? shaped pallet acting against the upper end of the pendulum rod, underslung brass cage supporting a dual-axis knife-edge suspension on a steel ring. Musical movement: 28 x 8 cm., brass bed numbered 2961, pinned brass cylinder and 96 tuned steel teeth on 24 four-tooth combs playing two tunes at will, brass fly, levers for start/stop, tune selection and end of tune stop. Dial signed. Dim. 67 x 45 x 21 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-9-25-01

Good

Scratched

Chipped

HANDS Original

Notes

This fascinating clock has a pendulum which travels in a conical motion. However, it is not the typical conical pendulum in which the weight is attached to a wire but the tip of the pendulum is detached, impulse being given by a rotating inverted ?T? shaped bar geared via a contrate wheel. The pendulum is mounted on a knife-edge suspension resting on a ring which in turn also rests upon two knife-edge pallets within a cage suspended under the case in the portico. Geiser (Geyser) A family of watchmakers from La Chaux-de-Fonds. Jean Geiser was a clockmaker from Eplatures. His sons, Jonas, David, and Jean were also clockmakers. Jonas and David were associates at one time. David Geiser (d. 1856), who married Julie Robert, is recorded at La Chaux de Fonds in 1825. He is known to have frequently traveled to Italy and worked in Milan. In ?La Pendulerie Neuchâteloise?, Alfred Chapuis mentions a Geyser Père et Fils who, in 1815, exhibited a mechanical piece said to demonstrate perpetual motion, in Neuchâtel. These were either Jean Geiser and David or Jonas Geiser, who lived in Epaltures, near Le Locle. They were clockmakers who were known for making complicated pieces.