The Private Collection of Theodor Beyer

Hotel Baur Au Lac, Zurich, Nov 16, 2003

LOT 43

Unsigned, French, No. 3791, circa 1835. Fine and very rare 18K gold dress watch with retrograde fly-back seconds hand.

CHF 6,000 - 8,000

EUR 3,900 - 5,200 / USD 4,400 - 6,000

Sold: CHF 13,800

C. Four-body, "forme quatre baguettes", engine-turned, gold hinged engraved cuvette. D. Silver, eccentric champlevé radial Roman chapter on brushed ring with outer minute divisions, set in the lower part of an engine-turned and whitened plate, the top with brushed seconds sector. Gold Breguet hands.M. 45.1 mm (20'''), frosted gilt, jeweled cylinder escapement, three-arm gilt balance with flat balance spring.Case punched with the French guarantee marks used between 1819 and 1838.Diam. 51 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good
Case: 3-14

Good

Damaged
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

Watches with a retrograde fly-back seconds hand are extremely rare. The mechanism allowing such a display was probably invented in the last quarter of the 18th century, when the first such watches appeared. Very few of them are known.