Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Nov 16, 2008

LOT 509

Six-Minute Tourbillon A. G. Randall, Birmingham, No. 11.Made in 1981 froman ebauche, with dial by JosephWhite & Son, Coventry, London, Makers to the Admiralty, the case with London hallmarks for 1980. Very fine and unique, 18K yellow gold, keyless pocket lever chronometer with six minute tourbillon regulator.

CHF 50,000 - 60,000

USD 46,000 - 55,000 / EUR 30,000 - 38,000

Sold: CHF 43,200

C. Three-body, heavy, "bassine et filets", polished, mastermark MRM (Mathews). Glazed gold-rimmed cover to view the movement. D. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track and subsidiary seconds. Blued steel pear hands. M. 20"', frosted and gilt, half-plate, 20 jewels in screwed gold chatons, going barrel, lateral lever escapement, including the fourth wheel to reduce the speed of rotation from the more conventional one-minute period, two-arm bimetallic compensation balance with gold temperature and meantime adjustment screws, free-sprung blued steel balance spring with terminal curve, the end pinned to a steel stud screwed to the cock, six minute tourbillon regulator with Randall gilt brass carriage, diamond endstone. Dial signed by Joseph White & Son, movement signed by A.G. Randall. Diam. 58 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 2

Very good
Movement: 2

Very good
Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

Anthony G. Randall was born in 1938 at Beaconsfield (Bucks). Since toys could not be bought during this period, children were forced to invent their own amusements using second-hand toys or what they could make for themselves. This contributed to an early fascination with mechanical objects which gradually turned to mending and repair. At the age of nine, Randall was sent to boarding school at Eastbourne. In his mid-teens, still at school, he was repairing docks and watches on a regular basis and began to pester local jewelers for tools and materials. He was offered a part-time job in Eastbourne, from Geoff Lee. Here he helped to repair clocks - especially carriage docks requiring a great deal of hard work - receiving instruction and tools in lieu of payment. Unfortunately, at the time, career prospects at the bench in horology were not good, so Randall continued his education at Manchester University, finishing in 1960 with a degree in physics. Thereafter followed short spells in business with his father and then with the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company working largely on their Scanning Electron Microscope project.