$23,600
Patek Philippe & Cie, Genève, No. 157153, case No. 270682. Made circa 1915 for Spaulding & Co., Chicago and presented to Barney Oldfield in 1916. Very fine, keyless, minute-repeating, 18K yellow gold pocket watch with split-seconds chronograph and register. Four-body, "demi-bassine", solid, polished, monogrammed case back, hinged gold cuvette with inscription: “Barney Oldfield by David G. Joyce – May 30th 1916”. White enamel with painted Arabic numerals, outer minute and outermost chronograph divisions, sunk subsidiary dials for the seconds and the 30-minute register. Gold “Louis XVI" hands. Notes Bern “Barney” Eli Oldfield Was born on a farm in Wauseon, Ohio on June 3, 1878. The outgoing young man loved bicycle racing and by 1894. His competitive talents had won him a gold watch and several silver medals and by 1896, he earned well as an amateur on the “Stearns” bicycle factory team. In 1902, in Salt Lake City, he raced on a gasoline-powered bicycle and shortly thereafter he met Henry Ford, who wanted him to test his cars. But the two Ford race cars prepared for him didn’t start. Barney bought both cars for $800 and after several improvements to his car “No. 999”, and was driven by him for the first time in the “Manufacturer’s challenge Cup”. He beat the defending champion Mexander Winton by half a mile! In 1903 Oldfield was the first driver to drive a mile in a minute and in 1910 he was speeding in his “Blitzen-Benz at 131.25 mph. Barney set many other records and
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2006-09-20
