The Sandberg Watch Collection

Hotel Richemond, Geneva, Mar 31, 2001

LOT 224

The Expanding HandHenricus Jones, London, circa 1678.A unique and highly important silver pair-cased watch with early balance spring with 'Barrow' regulator and expandable minute hand.

CHF 150,000 - 200,000

USD 90,000 - 120,000

Sold: CHF 355,500

C. Outer: two-body, brass with silver rims, shagreen covered, back and bezel decorated with silver pinwork, square hinge. Inner: two-body, polished, shutter for the winding aperture. D. Silver, central round champlevé radial Roman chapters hour chapter with quarter hour divisions, outer oval minute ring with five-minute Arabic numerals. The minute hand changes its length as it travels along the oval ring. 'Tulip', silver and blued-steel expanding minute hand, blued-steel hour hand. M. 46.5 mm o,gilt brass full plate, elaborate tulip pillars, fusee and chain, five-wheel train, verge escapement, three-arm steel balance, short two-coiled blued-steel balance spring with last coil straightened and with 'Barrow' regulator consisting of a worm along which curb pins can move, adjusting the effective length of the straight outer end of the spring, large one-footed gilt brass cock, pierced and engraved with scrolling foliage, secured by a screw, worm and wheel set-up mounted on the inside of thepillar plate.Signed on the back plate.Diam. 60 mm. Published in the Sandberg book, pages 152-153.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Good

Notes

This exceptional watch combines all of the latest technological advances of its period: the use of the newly invented balance spring, the Barrow regulator, the minute and hour hand when most watches had a single hour hand, and lastly, the expandable minute hand which shortens or lengthens according to its position on the oval dial. A German watch with an expanding hand, also dating from the 17th century, is known to exist, and a variation of this system was used by Le Roy on a clock dating fromhe early 18th century. A 'scissor' pattern hand was also used by Anthony on a very few watches for the Chinese market.The watch is published in H. Mariot, 'Watches', vol. 1, pl. H8 and in 'Watches' by Cecil Clutton and George Daniels, New York, 1965, fig. 193.Jones Henricuswas a highly respected maker of often very individual clocks as well as watches. He was apprenticed to both Benjamin Hill and Edward East, became a Freeman of the Clockmakers' Company in 1663, and Master in 1691. He is recorded in the Baillie as making oval watch with minute hand varying in lenght to follow the oval, prevously in the Gélis collection.