12,500 CHF
Le Roy - Minute Repeating & Independent Dead Center-Seconds Le Roy & Fils, To the Queen, 211 Regent Street, London, 13 & 15 Palais Royal, Paris, No. 47894, the movement Swiss. Made circa 1870. Very fine and rare, minute-repeating, two-train, half-hunting-cased, keyless 18K gold pocket watch with independent dead center-seconds. Four-body, “bassine et filets”, polished with engine-turned borders and band, the front cover with radial blue enamel Roman numerals and inner minute track around the glazed aperture, the back cover with royal blue enamel champlevé monogram, slide for locking the center-seconds at 10 o’clock. Hinged gold cuvette. White enamel with radial Roman numerals, outer minute track. Blued steel spade hands. 43 mm., 19’’’, frosted gilt, two-train with tandem winding, 40 jewels, counterpoised straight line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance with gold temperature and mean time adjustment screws, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a slide in the band. Cuvette signed. Diam. 52 mm. Notes The London branch of the Paris firm of Le Roy & Fils (which derived from the business established by Basile Charles Le Roy, c. 1785) was set up at the latest by 1854 in 296 Regent Street. By 1866 they had also acquired 211 Regent Street, and by 1875 occupied both 211 & 213. By 1885 they had moved to 57 Bond Street, in which elegant thoroughfare they remained until 1952.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2011-05-15
