$12,880
Dent, Watchmaker to the King, 61 Strand & 4 Royal Exchange, London, No. 57361. Hallmarked 1909-10. Very fine, half-hunting, keyless, minute-repeating, 18K gold watch with split-seconds chronograph and 60-minute register. Four-body, solid,“Pommes”, front with aperture surrounded by champlevé Roman numerals, gold hinged cuvette, band with milled slot for the slide, chronograph acti-vating pushbutton at 11, pushbutton for the split at 1. Off-white with Roman numerals, outer minute ring, outermost chronograph scale divided into 1/5th seconds, subsidiary sunk seconds dial, sunk minute register at 12. Gold “spade” hands. Cal. 44 mm, frosted gilt, 24 jewels, lateral lever escapement with lift on the pallets, cut bimetallic compensation balance, Breguet palladium balance spring, cock with diamond endstone, Nicole Nielsen chronograph work set on the back plate, repeating on gongs by activating slide on the band.Dial, case and movement signed.Diam. 55 mm. Notes This watch comes from a small series of complicated watches by Dent, some of which were destined for the Kew Observatory trials. The finish is excellent, the off center repeating work was made by the same maker who made the repeating works for Morgan’s Frodshams, or some of the most complicated S. Smith watches, such as sold by Antiquorum on April 24, 2004, lot 164. The watch also implements a palladium balance spring, rarely found in English watches.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2004-05-26
