22,420 CHF
Patek Philippe & Co. , Genève, No. 100868, case No. 212872, retailed by A. H. Rodanet, Constructeur de Chronometres, Paris, No. 11185. Sold to Rodanet on April 3, 1895. Fine and unusual, hunting-cased, keyless, 18K pink gold pocket watch with extra fixed minute hand for indication of a second local time. Four-body, "bassine", solid, polished. Hinged gold cuvette. White enamel with painted radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds dial. Yellow gold "spade" hour and minute hands, extra blued steel minute hand. Notes Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time (originally apparent solar time, as with a sundial; and, later, mean solar time). Mean solar time is the average over a year of apparent solar time. Its difference from apparent solar time is the equation of time This became increasingly awkward as railways and telecommunications improved, because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude, which was usually not a convenient number. This problem could be solved by synchronizing the clocks in all localities, but then in many places the local time would differ markedly from the solar time to which people are accustomed. Time zones were first proposed for the entire world by Canada's Sir Sandford Fleming in 1876 as an appendage to the single 24-hour clock he proposed for the entire world (located at the center of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian).
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2007-10-14
