Important Collectors’ Wristwatches Po...

Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Oct 21, 1995

LOT 252

Elkington, London, un-numbered, circa 1900. Impressive mahogany-and-glass cased, eight day going, weight driven, longcase, Showroom" regulator with fully visible skeletonised movement, gravity escapement and mercurial compensation pendulum.

CHF 80,000 - 90,000

Sold: CHF 97,750

C. Mahogany with glazed radiused top, glazed sicle panels and glazed front door, deep bottom box decorated with convex and concave mouldings and with a carved frieze. D. Silvered skeletonised chapter ring showing the movement, Roman numerals and subsidiary seconds. Blued steel "heart" hands. M. Skeletonised frames in the form of a stylised "A", six pillars, inverted train, wheels with six crossings, high-numbered pinions, maintaining power. Double three-legged gravity escapement (escaping at approximatly two degrees of pendulum arc), ivory beat pins, holes for pivots of fourth and escape wheel arbors jewelled. Mercurial pendulum with steel rod and glass jar incorporating a device for adjusting the compensation. Silvered cartouche screwed to the front movement frame inscribed "Elkington London". In very good condition. Dim. 200 x 62 x 32 cm.


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Notes

ELKINGTON Primarily retailers, the firm of Elkington appears to have been active from the middle decades of the century onwards. Note: Elkington being a retailer, rather than a maker, this regulator, which would have stood in the front shop to show correct time to customers, so that they could set their watches, was almost certainly made in Clerkenwell. At the time this piece was made, the double threelegged gravity escapement, invented by Edmund B. Denison (afterward Lord Grimthorpe), for the famous Westminster dock in London, was much in favour and even considered to be better than the Graham dead-beat escapement. It was therefore natural that a retailer such as Elkington was proud to exhibit in his shop a regulator with this escapement.