Important Modern & Vintage Timepieces

Monaco, Jul 21, 2021

LOT 200

Unsigned
Skeleton dress-watch; 18K yellow gold and diamonds

EUR 4,000 - 6,000

USD 4,800 - 7,200 / HKD 36,900 - 56,000

Sold: EUR 6,240

18K yellow gold and diamond-set, open-face, keyless-winding, round-shaped, skeleton dress-watch.

Movement fully skeletonized and engraved in taille-douce (fine-cut) with scrolls and foliage.


LOADING IMAGES
Click to full view Click to full view
Image Image

Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent

Case: 2

Very good

Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense

Dial: 2-01

Very good

HANDS Original

Brand Unsigned, Switzerland

Year circa 1980

Movement No. 8 106 or 9 018

Diameter 41 mm

Caliber 16’’’, straight-line lever escapement

Weight 24.9 gr. (approx.)

Notes

Skeleton watches have been around for a long time, allowing the amateur to discover the mysteries of the art of watchmaking. They experienced a revival of interest during the Art Deco period, then in the 1980s with the resurgence of mechanical horology after the quartz crisis of the 1970s.
Personalities such as Vincent Calabrese (b.1944) – to whom we owe in 1977 the rectilinear movement, known as the “Golden Bridge In-Line”, where all the wheels and pinions are arranged in a straight line (an invention sold to Corum, which then improved it, patented it and officially launched it in 1980) – or the Claude Meylan House in the Abbaye, Vallée de Joux, founded in 1983, or Kurt Schaffo in Le Locle, have made a speciality of producing skeleton pieces, both pocket and wristwatch, sometimes with self-winding or with horological complications.
--
*a 20% import VAT is due on the hammer price with buyer's premium, plus 150€ for termination of temporary export, at buyer's expense, only if it is delivered within the EU