Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Hotel Du Rhone, Apr 02, 2006

LOT 406

?The Seashell? Humfrey Downing, Fecit, London. Made circa 1650. Very fine and very rare silver, oval, pre?balance spring, single-hand pendant watch in the form of a seashell with concealed dial.

CHF 14,000 - 18,000

108 9,000 - 12,000

Sold: CHF 30,680

C. Two-body, "fermée type", oval with deep back, chased and engraved to resemble a seashell, small pendant, loose ring. D. Silver ring with champlevé radial Roman numerals and inner quarter-ring, fleur-de-lys half hour markers, fixed to silver dial plate very finely engraved with flowers. Blued steel "tulip" hand M. Oval, 37 x 29 mm, full plate gilt brass, slender divided Egyptian pillars, fusee and gut, short train, verge escapement, circular steel foliot, irregular small-footed pinned cock, worm-gear mainspring set-up with silver calibrated plate. Signed on the back plate. Dim. 42 x 34 mm excluding pendant. To be sold without reserve


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-05

Good

HANDS Luminous material reapplied

Notes

Humfrey Downing Was apprenticed to Robert Grinkin in 1637. Although Loomes, in his monumental work on early watchmakers, stated that there was no known surviving watch by him, we know of another one in the Ruscitti collection (No. 9 in his catalogue published by the Instituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Firenze, 1998), as well as the present watch. This watch was previously sold by Antiquorum, Geneva, in the Exceptional Horological Sale Celebrating Antiquorum's 30th Anniversary on April 4, 2004, lot 222.