Important Watches, Collector's Wrist...

Hong Kong, Jun 08, 2001

LOT 329

M. S. Bronnikoff, Vjatka, Russian, circa 1870.Very fine and rare watch made entirely of bone, accompanied by original bone chain and bone ratchet key.

HKD 120,000 - 155,000

USD 15,000 - 20,000

Sold: HKD 138,000

C. Double-body, hinged back cover, polished, bezels with turned ribs at the edges. Chain: single, carved from a single bone, 9 mm ring-links joined by small double ring-links. D. Bone with circular cartouches for the hour chapter, subsidiary seconds. Bone ?Breguet? hands. M. Very unusual and inventive design in which the movement forms an integral part of the case, the dial forming the pillar plate and the bridges and cocks supported by brackets milled in the back part of the band. Entirely madeof bone with the exception of the pivots and spring, going barrel, five-wheel train (counting the barrel), simplified cylinder escapement, plain, three-arm bone balance with blued steel flat balance spring.Signed on the case.Diam. 50 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 3 - 21
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3 - 14 - 01

Notes

The watch is important from a horological point of view, for, it appears to be the first in which the movement is an integral part of the case. Bronnikoff was apparently ahead of his time. Around 1886, Albert Potter, an American watchmaker working in Geneva, designed a reliable but inexpensive watch, called the ?Charmilles?, ?the best watch $4.00 could buy?. His principal idea was to make the back plate of the movement an integral part of the case, so that the case body and back plate could be samped from sheet stock in one blow, with no machining necessary. Potter took out several American patents related to this idea, the principal one, No. 360477, for a ?watch case & movement plate combined?. It appears that Bronikoff had the same idea at least fifteen years earlier.