Two American watchmakers of the second half of the 19th century stand out among all others: Albert Potter (see lot 339) and Charles Fasoldt. The latter, a very colorful individual, was born in Germany in 1818, received a death sentence for taking part in the 1848 Revolution, escaped from prison and sailed to the United States. He began making watches in Rome, New York and subsequently moved to Albany, where he established an impressive enterprise for the making of clocks, micrometric gratings, microscopes and, of course, his famous watches. He sold them for between $150 and $300 each, which was expensive at the time. They were made according to his very individual design. Almost all of them employed his patented chronometer lever escapement.The escapement in the present watch (patented on Feb 1, 1859) is remarkably reliable. It requires no oil and has very strong draw on both locking pallets. Fasoldt performed an interesting and picturesque experiment demonstrating the reliability of his escapement, he tied his watch, along with other maker's watches, to the driving rod of the Empire Express locomotive. After having made the entire trip from Albany to New York and back, his watch registered only a few minutes' difference. The other makers' watches stopped within the first few minutes of the trip. The other unusual feature of this watch is the winding and hand-setting. The winding is done in the usual way by winding the crown clockwise (the crown cannot be turned anti-clockwise). For the hand-setting, the entire crown is released via a slide on the band and a winding square at the end of the stem is then used manually to set the hands from the back of the movement. This is a variation of the ?Breguet key? system, but without ratchet.