- Museum number
- 1958,1201.1033
- Description
-
MOVEMENT AND DIAL OF A LEVER WATCH WITH QUARTER REPEAT AND CENTRE SECONDS CHRONOGRAPH.
Three-quarter plate.
Slide operated quarter repeat sounding on two wire gongs; centre-seconds chronograph with stop, start and fly-back.
Going-barrel.
Club-tooth lever escapement; gold escape wheel; split bi-metallic balance; micrometer regulator; spiral balance-spring with overcoil.
Enamel dial; sunk subsidiary seconds; minutes in red.
Elaborately pierced gold hands.
Case missing.
With watch, a brass bezel and glass which do not belong.
Gold winding button with plain steel end in photograph of drawer now missing.
- Production date
- 1885-1895
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 45.10 millimetres (case-band)
-
Diameter: 44.60 millimetres (dial-plate)
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Thickness: 12.20 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
-
- Curator's comments
- Comment from Richard Good, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. Vol. V (Unpublished manuscript)
Made by A. Lange & Son
Glashutte, Dresden, Germany, c. 1890
Watch movement with quarter repeating and chronograph work and with a club tooth lever escapement.
Signature: On the dial 'A LANGE & SOHNE GLASHUTTE B DRESDEN'. On the back plate 'A Lange & Sohne Glashutte bei Dresden No. 29574'.
Case: Missing.
Dial and Hands: Flat canister dial with sunk centre and also sunk subsidiary seconds dial. Centre seconds markings around the outside of the minute circle divided into 1/5ths of a second, each 5 seconds numbered in red. Gold hands, the hour and minute Louis XIV style, the centre seconds hand with its tail terminating in a fleur-de-lys. The subsidiary seconds hand also with a decorated tail.
Movement:
Ebauche Marks: 29574
Frame: ¾ plate layout. Nickel silver plates, spotted all over, with the back plate also damascened. The back plate supported by three turned pillars and secured by screws. Under the back plate 74, under the pallet and balance cocks 4. The hammers of the repeating train are pivoted in the back plate, the rest of the repeating train has its own bridge under the back plate.
Barrel and Mainspring: Going hanging barrel with four turn Geneva stop work. Barrel I. diameter 15.4 mm., height 2.75 mm. Mainspring: height 2.5 mm., thickness 0.18 mm.
Arbor: diameter 5.6 mm., not snailed.
Hooking: round.
Train: Brass wheels gilded, with five crossings except for the gold escape wheel which has four. A high quality train.
Jewelled: From the third onwards including the repeating train, all jewels rubbed in except for the train jewels in the back plate and the escapement jewels which are all in screwed settings of gold. The escapement with ruby endstones except for that in the balance cock which is a diamond.
Escapement: Club tooth lever, straight line layout, short lever, effectively a double roller although the impulse jewel is set into the balance arm. The impulse jewel of triangular section. The safety roller of steel. An equidistant locking escapement. Pallet stones convex on the impulse faces but flat on the locking faces . Escape wheel of gold, teeth not chamfered but convex tips to the teeth. Pallet frame of gold.
No of teeth embraced 3½.
Balance: A split bimetallic balance with gold quarter and compensation screws. Balance diameter 14.3 mm., height 1.2 mm. The balance rim split to give a friction fit to the quarter screws in the usual Lange way, see ill. Blued-steel flat spiral spring of 15 turns with a terminal curve.
Means of Regulation: Index on the balance cock registering against a vernier scale, the index micrometrically controlled by a screw and whiplash spring. The cock also engraved with SF.
Train Counts and Beat Rate:
Great wheel (barrel) 92
Centre wheel 80 pinion 12
Third wheel 75 pinion 10
Fourth wheel 70 pinion 10
Escape wheel 15 pinion 7
Beat Rate: 18,000
Motion work: cannon pinion 12, minute wheel 36
minute pinion 10, hour wheel 40
Winding System: Side lever set positive keyless work with a special catch to retain the sliding pinion in the hand set position. The catch is automatically released on pressing the winding button.
Chronograph Work: Was controlled by a single push piece in the case which operates an edge cam through a lever giving the three conditions; run, stop and return to zero. The drive from the third pinion is through gears with fine triangular teeth.
Quarter Repeating: Was operated by a slide in the case band. There is all-or-nothing and the speed of striking is controlled by altering the depthing of the final pinion in the repeating train. The pivots of this pinion are not in jewel holes but otherwise all of the repeating train is jewelled, as are the lower pivots of the hammers and the barrel arbor (i.e. those in the back plate).
Dimensions: Movement diameter 44.3 mm., height 12.2 mm.
Provenance: Formerly in the Ilbert collection. Ilbert purchased this watch movement from Malcolm Gardner 6/2/1929.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
-
Latest: 2 (2017)
-
2 (1994)
- Acquisition date
- 1958
- Acquisition notes
- Following the successful acquisition of the celebrated Ilbert collection of clocks (1958,1006 collection), prints and other related materials made possible by the generous donation of funds by Gilbert Edgar CBE Ilbert's watches were then acquired using funds provided by Gilbert Edgar, public donations and government funds.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1958,1201.1033
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: CAI.1033 (Ilbert Collection)
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: Q17 (Ilbert Ledger)
