663,500 CHF
Breguet, No. 4168, sold to Monsieur Arago on March 18, 1826 for 1800 francs.Very fine and extremely rare 18K gold and silver large double-face single-hand watch with special inking chronograph and ten-minute register. Accompanied by a certificate dated May 6, 1925. One of only two examples ever made by Breguet. Notes Examining this chronograph, one is forced to admire the skills and resourcefulness of Breguet. The solution to the activation problem is ingenious.Inking chronographs generally function in the following manner: when the pushbutton in the pendant is depressed, a small drop of ink is deposited on the dial by the chronograph hand. Then, a portion of the chronograph hand is lifted in turn by a further depression of the pushbutton, Although this takes place very rapidly, in precise time measurement even a split second is significant.In this chronograph Breguet has minimized the time interval by an ingenious use of the mainspring barrel's strength. A device similar to an escapement, upon depressing the pushbutton, releases the mainspring barrel which takes over and almost instantaneously lifts a portion of the chronograph hand, causing the ink deposit.This solution is far from intuitively obvious and would never occur to most watchmakers, who would be very reluctant to release the click from the barrel to let it loose. This is how pinions and wheels are broken!However Breguet used this force, via an escapement-like device, to let the barrel down in a controlled Read more…
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2003-04-12
