Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Nov 16, 2008

LOT 660

Portrait of Muhammad V ? Minute-Repeating & Chronograph F. Girardet, Swiss, No. 350193, retailed by Constantaras Freres, Constantinople, Joailliers en Chef de Sa M.J. Le Sultan. Made circa 1910. Very fine, large, minute-repeating, 18K pink gold and painted on enamel keyless pocket watch with chronograph.

CHF 9,000 - 11,000

USD 8,500 - 10,000

Sold: CHF 34,800

C. Four-body, ?demi-bassine?, the front cover with a painted on enamel portrait of Ottoman Sultan Muhammad V, finely engraved leaf border, the back cover decorated with engraved geometric foliage, polished band with button at 12 o?clock for the start/stop and return-to-zero of the chronograph. Hinged gold cuvette engraved with the technical details and prize medals. D. White enamel with Breguet numerals, outer minute divisions, outermost fifths of a second divisions with Arabic five-second numerals, subsidiary seconds. Blued steel spade hands. M. 19???, rhodium plated, fausses cotes decoration, 29 jewels, straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide on the band. Case punched ?F.G?. Diam. 57 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good

Case: 3-20

Good

Period original

Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense

Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

Muhammad V or Mehmet V,
1844?1918 Ottoman sultan (1909?18). He succeeded to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) when the liberal ?Young Turk? revolution of 1909 deposed his brother, Abd al-Hamid II. He exercized no actual power under the new constitution, and the administration was dominated by Enver Pasha. During Muhammad's reign Turkey lost most of its remaining European possessions in the Balkan Wars (1912?13) and lost Tripoli to Italy in 1911?12. Germany gained increasing influence over Turkish affairs, resuming construction of the Baghdad Railway in 1911. Muhammad sided with the Central Powers in World War I. He died shortly before the Turkish surrender and was succeeded by his brother, Muhammad VI.