Important Watches, Collectors’ Wristw...

Hotel Noga Hilton, Nov 14, 2004

LOT 12

F. Ls. Favre, Locle, 1840. Exceptional and highly important 18K gold early lever pocket chronometer with stop feature, foudroyante, dead-seconds, and Réaumur thermometer.

CHF 17,000 - 20,000

EUR 11,000 - 13,000 / USD 13,000 - 16,000

Sold: CHF 48,300

C. Four-body, ?Empire?, No. 21662, engine-turned, gold hinged cuvette, bolt at 4 for start/stop. D. White enamel, radial Roman numerals, outer minute divisions, three subsidiary seconds dials, above for continuous seconds, at 4 o?clock for fifth-seconds jump, and dead-seconds at 8. M. 50 mm (22'''), frosted gilt, jeweled to the third, skeletonized circular plate of a smaller diameter than the pillar plate, going barrel, lateral counterpoised lever escapement with exposed ruby pallets, fast beat (21,600) cut-bimetallic compensation chronometer-type balance with sliding temperature weights and gold timing screws, device to protect the free ends of each sector fromaccidental distortion, free-sprung blued steel helical balance spring, ingeniously simple diablotine driven from a goldwheel mounted on the escape wheel pinion with stop leverat 5 o?clock, dead-seconds also ingeniously driven via an advance lever connecting the 60-tooth gold ratchet wheel set above the 4th wheel with the dead-seconds wheel, bimetallic thermometer.Signed on the dial.Diam. 55 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 3*

Good

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

Notes

The present watch is of the same quality as Breguet?s ?garde temps?. The escapement is of the highest quality; the pallets are equidistant and with proper draw, it has a double roller to decrease friction, and a fast-beat chronometer balance with graduation for easy temperature adjustment. The balance also has a device to protect the free ends of each sector from accidental distortion, sometimes employed in the best English chronometers. Balance sensitivity is inversely proportional to the total thickness of the rim, however, overly thin rims are fragile and thus more susceptible to deformation caused by centrifugal force. The device in the present watch was invented about 1800 to prevent such damage. The most remarkable feature of this watch is the design of the dead seconds and fifth seconds diablotine. Surely invented by Favre, it is found in no other watch. The dead seconds are ingeniously advanced every second by a lever lifted by a 60-tooth ratchet wheel set on the 4th wheel arbor. The lever, lifted every second advances the 60-tooth dead seconds wheel by the opposite end. The diablotine is equally clever in design: a pinion fitted on a movable lever, gearing with a gold wheel set on the escape wheel pinion. Frédéric-Louis Favre-Bulle 1770-1849 was born in La Sagne. Along with Jacques-Frédéric Houriet 1743-1830 and Louis Richard, he was one of the most skillful Swiss watchmakers of his time. At a very early age he became apprenticed to Courvoisier and Houriet, the best Swiss makers at the time. Subsequently, he worked for Breguet, where, along with John Roger Arnold, Frederick Louis Fatton, Jacques-Frédéric Houriet, Urban Jürgensen, Louis-Frédéric Perrelet, and Henri Robert, he proved to be one of Breguet?s best pupils.