33,600 HKD
Early English Minute-Repeater C. I. Cope, London, No. 793. The case with London hallmarks for 1826-1827. Fine and extremely rare, large, very early minute-repeating, 18K gold pocket watch. Four-body, “bassine et filets”, engine-turned and polished, reeded band. Hinged gold cuvette. Gold with applied radial Roman numerals, outer varicoloured gold grape and vine leaf border, engine-turned center, subsidiary seconds. Gold pear hands. 48 mm., frosted gilt, three-quarter plate, ringed cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, maintaining power, the barrel secured by a plate, lateral lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance with gold and platinum meantime and temperature adjustment screws, Breguet balance spring with overcoil, index regulator, repeating on blued steel gongs activated by depressing the pendant. Movement signed. Diam. 57 mm. Notes Watches with minute repeating from this period are extremely rare particularly from England. Most of the very few minute repeating watches at this time were made in Switzerland. Charles John Cope Recorded as working in London between 1815 and 1830, he was an expert on Earnshaw’s chronometers. See: “Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World”, G.H. Baillie, 1947.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2008-06-08
