Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Nov 16, 2008

LOT 452

Deck Watch Ulysse Nardin, Locle, No. 120430, case No. 604337. Made circa 1939. Fine, keyless, Staybrite deck watch lever chronometer with indirect center seconds and Guillaume balance. Accompanied by a mahogany and brass deck box. To be sold without reserve

CHF 2,500 - 3,500

USD 2,300 - 3,200 / EUR 1,600 - 2,200

Sold: CHF 960

C. Four-body, solid, polished, "bassine". Hinged staybrite cuvette. Double body mahogany deck box, the brass bowl with screwed bezel. D. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer Arabic minute and seconds ring with fifths of a second divisions. Blued steel spade hands.M. 21???, frosted and gilt, 23 jewels, straight-line lever escapement, the upper pivots of the escape wheel and the lever with gold endplates, anibal-brass Guillaume balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring with terminal curve, micrometric regulator. Dial, case and movement signed. Diam. 64 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AA

Very good

Case: 2

Very good

Movement: 2

Very good

Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Notes

Guillaume Balance In 1899, Dr. Charles Edouard Guillaume noted that steel with an addition of 44.4% nickel had a negative square coefficient of thermal expansion. This alloy, combined with brass in bimetallic lamina, makes its expansion close to quadratic. Balances with bimetallic rims made of anibal (anibal, an alloy invented by Guillaume, stands for (Acier au NIckel pour BaLanciers) and brass are usually called Guillaume balances, or, as their inventor called them, integral balances. When combined with special balance springs, they exhibit remarkable temperature stability.