Josiah Emery's average production of watches appears to have been of roughly 40 pieces per year. As watch No. 615 is hallmarked for the years 1772/1773, the No. 661 can reasonably dated 1774. According to Emery himself it was at this time that Count von Bruhl began to persuade him to produce watches with Mudge's lever escapement as fitted to "Queen Charlotte's watch". We know that Bruhl had seen the escapement and described it to Emery circa 1774, but we also know that Emery who had not seen thewatch itself nor any model, stated at that time that he: "doubted whether it would be possible to ever make a common sized watch with an escapement on so large scale".Up to now it had always been assumed that Emery simply surmised this from from Bruhl's rather general description of the escapement. But the existence of this watch suggests that, presumably without informing von Bruhl, Emery memorised his description and immediately decided to try an escapement of this type, in a "common sized" watch. This attempt however does not appear to have been entirely successful. Emery therefore draws the conclusion that such an escapement was too difficult to make accuately on a small scale.The movement of this watch is by no means of as high quality as the Emery's later lever watches, mainly made for him by Richard Pendleton. It is quite possible that Watch No. 661 was made by Emery himself, to ensure its existence remained a secret until he had concluded how it would perform and find a way to produce such timekeepers successfully.It is possible that other makers close to Emery might have seen the watch later and been influenced by it. For instance, the early lever watches, made by John Leroux in the mid 1780's, which have an identical escape wheel, with all the lift on the teeth, could have been influenced by this watch. The watch appears to have had at least two other "states" before reaching the present form.In its first state, circa 1774, it seems that Emery had the movement signed and numbered in case he might one day want to claim it as his product. Giving it a serial number might also have been a means of staking his claim to priority for the overall movement design. At this stage the movement may even have remained ungilt and uncased. It was almost certainly without maintaining power and appears to have had a straight, Harrison-type, bimetallic compensation curb acting on the tail of the balancspring. The curb would have been mounted on a rotating slide, for mean time adjustment. In this first form, the balance spring would have been studded in a position about 90° anti-clockwise from its present place.The extraordinary high frequency of the train is undoubtedly inspired by Harrison who implied in his Principles....that the smaller the watch is, the faster the train should be. In this first state it seems likely the plates were pinned together in the usual way. The second state was probably introduced two or three years later when the watch was fitted with a maintaining power. Such a high frequency balance, associated with a relatively crudely made lever escapement, means that the watch is notself starting (although reasonably reliable once going) and without maintaining power, it would need a good twist to start after every winding. The compensation appears to have been changed at this time. And the back plate slightly reduced in diameter, bringing the engraving of the signature very close to the edge. The pillars secured by pins could also have been changed for pillars secured by screws, making of this watch one of the earliest examples of this kind. The entire movement could alsohen have been gilded or regilded. The new "Chelsea bun" type compensation, was fitted into a new engraved slide plate, with the compensator filling fully the circular opening made for it. The balance and the spring then had to be repositioned to their present place, in order to work with the new compensation. The curb of which was probably of the type with the centre fixed to the steel plate (on the centre of the opening managed in the slide plate)and with a simple limb with a pair of curb pinsn the end, embracing the balance spring. Insufficient compensation necessitating to move the spiral compensator back off the centre of the slide plate and to make a curb lever and curb accordingly to fit. There is no evidence the movement was already cased at this stage.The change for the third state appears to have been performed in the mid 1790's, probably after the death of Josiah Emery. The movement could have remained his property until his death and found by Recordon & Dupont in 1795, who then had the movement dialled and cased in order to be able to sell it.For more details, please refer to Jonathan Betts: Josiah Emery's first Lever Watch, Antiquarian Horology, Winter 1998, article from which we have drawn the notes for this watch. This article was the last of a whole series of Emery articles which are to be rewritten as a monograph, to be published shortly.