Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Hong Kong,the Ritz Carlton Hotel,harbour Room, 3rd Floor, Nov 25, 2006

LOT 167

"Watch with 8 Complications" Louis Brandt Frères, La Chaux de Fonds, No. 4297. Made circa 1900. Very fine and very rare, astronomic, minute-repeating, 18K gold, hunting-cased pocket watch with perpetual calendar, moon phases, lunar calendar, chronograph and instantaneous central minute register.

HKD 280,000 - 330,000

USD 36,000 - 42,000 / EUR 30,000 - 35,000

Sold: HKD 283,200

C. Four-body, "bassine", polished. Hinged gold cuvette.
D. Matte silver with applied yellow gold faceted baton indexes, outer minute track and fifths of a second divisions, Arabic five minute numerals, subsidiary dials for days of the week, date, months and four-year cycle, seconds concentric with lunar calendar, aperture for the moon phases. Yellow gold "épée" hands.
M. 45 mm., rhodium-plated, "fausses cotes" decoration, 36 jewels, counterpoisedstraight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, swan-neck micrometer regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Case punched with Louis Brandt Frères mark "LBF". Diam. 57 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good

Movement: 2

Very good

Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

The complications of this watch are:
- Day - Date - Month - Four-year cycle - Moon phase and lunar calendar - Chronograph - Register - Repeat In 1894 the brand ?Omega? saw the light, with the greek letter ?W?. The production grew to 600 units per day in 1900 and gave an entirely new dimension to the company ?Louis Brandt & Frères?. It had become: ?A Watch Brand Conquering the World?. Since then, Omega has created the most remarkable wristwatches, participated in a large number of contest and obtained an incredible number of rewards, titles and successes. In the 1930?s, Omega became the ?Olympic Games? timing-chronographers and at the end of the 1960?s, the company launched the legendary ?Moon Watch?. Omega has become an extremely well-known brand throughout the years. Part of the SMH Group, the world?s largest watch group, renamed The Swatch Group A.G. in 1998, Omega is still one of the top brands in the world, enjoying the highest levels of popularity worldwide. On April 14 & 15, 2007, Antiquorum will hold an auction devoted exclusively to the Omega brand - "Omegamania".
Louis Brandt Freres
In 1848, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Louis Brandt, watchmaker, started his own manufacture of metal and silver pocket watches which he exported throughout Europe, and particularly to England. Very soon, he also made gold pocket and fob-watches which were received with great success by their clientele. In 1879, his sons Louis-Paul and César joined the business and the new manufacture was established in Bienne in early 1880. Within ten years, the manufacture had become the largest in Switzerland. At that time, the Brandt brothers introduced new production techniques, mechanization and automation, patterned after those used in the United States. They transformed the small-series manufacture of watches into industrial-scale production, thereby entering the world arena.