Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Du Rhône, May 13, 2007

LOT 342

?Stanhope Peepers? French and Swiss. Made in the first half of the 19th century. Fine, six, gold, silver and gilt metal ratchet watch keys, one with Stanhope peeper of Paris views, another with an erotic Stanhope peeper. To be sold without reserve

CHF 2,500 - 3,500

EUR 1,500 - 2,200 / USD 2,000 - 3,000

Sold: CHF 4,248

Comprising: a gold ratchet key, the terminal fitted with a Stanhope peeper of Les Invalides and the Arc de Triomphe; a silver ratchet key, the drum-form terminal set with an erotic Stanhope peeper; a silver ratchet key, the terminal set with clored glass cabochons; two silver Breguet-type ratchet keys; a gilt metal ratchet key. The gold key in good condition, some wear to others. Property of an Swiss Collector


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Notes

Stanhope Peepers Charles Stanhope, the 3rd Earl of Stanhope, was a politician and a scientist. Born in 1753, he invented a printing press, various calculating machines, and the lens which is named after him. Based on a small cylindrical glass rod, convex at one end and flat at the other, the lens will greatly magnify any transparent object that is placed on the flat surface and viewed through the other end. Used ori ginally as a microscope lens, it found a new use after the invention of photomicrography in 1853 in the tiny trinkets and souvenirs which came to be known as 'Stanhopes.' The earliest Stanhopes were rings and brooches, but from the 1860s until into the 20th century, a great variety of objects containing these tiny photographs were made. Keys with Stanhope peepers are extremely rare, and particularly those erotic scenes, as in the present lot.