- Museum number
- 1958,1201.1176
- Description
-
SILVER CASED LEVER WATCH WITH QUARTER-REPEAT, CENTRE SECONDS AND DATE INDICATOR [CASE NOT ORIGINAL?].
Lever escapement; Pouzait type.
Enamel dial; day-of-week and day-of-month.
Silver case.
- Production date
- 1810-1820
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 67.20 millimetres (case)
-
Diameter: 59.10 millimetres (dial)
-
Thickness: 26.10 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Comment from Richard Good, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. Vol. V (Unpublished manuscript)
Made by Louis George & Cie
Berlin, c.1815
Silver cased, dumb quarter-repeating, centre-seconds watch with a seconds-beating pin-wheel escapement
Signature: On the dial 'Ls.. George et Compagnie hger..
du Roy à Berlin'. On the back plate 'Ls George & Ce
Hr du Roy à Berlin'1
Case: Silver open-face case with a hinged bezel and a snap on back. The back has a plain raised circular portion at its centre which is surrounded by engine turning. This engine turning is badly rubbed near the centre. The case is punched with the French quarantee mark used for 800 silver from 1838 in various places and inside the back with a maker's lozenge mark which appears to contain a letter L to the left of a vertical lizard.
Dial and Hands:
The minute marks around the outside of the dial are numbered 15, 30, 45 and 60. There are two subsidiary dials, the upper one for the day of the week and date. the lower one for hours and minutes. The hour numerals are Arabic and the minutes are marked and numbered 15, 30, 45 and 60. There is a winding hole next to 3 o'clock on the subsidiary minute circle next to which is a bad chip in the dial caused by the winding key. As a result the numeral 2 is missing as is part of the 3. There is also a chip on the outside edge of the dial around the 23-26 minute position which has been filled with a greyish compound. The hands are of blued-steel, including the long centre seconds hand.
Dial-plate: The dial plate is in the form of a brass ring gilded on the outside and with its outer edge decorated with a scolloped finish with engraved lines between each of the depressions that form the scolloping. The plate carries the piece that fixes the movement into the case and also the jumper for the date wheel.
Dust-cover: None intended.
Movement:
Ebauche Marks: none.
Frame: A full plate layout, the back plate supported by four cylindrical pillars. The escape wheel is planted at the centre of the movement. A separate flat cock with engraved decoration is let into the back plate and extends over the balance staff aperture to provide a bearing for the pallet staff. Another small un-gilded cock, screwed to the inside of the back plate, provides the rear central bearing for the escape wheel. There is a small un-gilded potence for the balance and a large pierced and engraved balance cock, the latter of which is 92 per cent of the overall size of the back plate.
Fusee, Barrel and Mainspring:
Fusee: 3 1/4 turns fusee without maintaining power.
Barrel: flanged, internal diameter 19.9 mm, height 3.00 mm. The set-up work for the mainspring, mounted under the dial, has a very small steel ratchet wheel which has been filed down to remove about 5 of its 20 teeth.
Mainspring: height 2.82 mm, thickness 0.27 mm.
Barrel Arbor: diameter 6.8 mm, not snailed. It consists of a central steel arbor with a brass head.
Train: A three wheel train of plain brass wheels, the second and third wheels with four wide crossings.
Jewelling: There are no jewels but the pallets and balance have polished steel coquerets.
Escapement: A Pouzait-type pin wheel lever escapement similar to the escapement found in Cat No. 16 (registration no. 1958,1201.1186). Safety action is provided by a ring with four crossings, made similar to a contrate wheel but without teeth, concentric with and screwed to the underside of the balance. The ring has two passing slots for pins on the fork end of the pallet frame. The impulse pin is a broad piece of brass, 1.75 mm. across. The steel pallets are not jewelled and the lever is a crude replacement for the original. The banking is solid being against the sides of a cut out in the back plate. The large diameter plain brass escape wheel has four crossings.
An equal impulse escapement.
No of teeth embraced 42.
Balance: A four-arm gilded brass balance, diam. 47.0 mm, thickness 0.9 mm. A flat spiral blued-steel balance spring of 11 1/4 turns.
Means of Regulation: A long steel index on the balance cock registers against a divided scale around the rear edge of the foot, 'A' is engraved at one end and 'R' at the other.
Train Counts and Beat Rate:
Great wheel 70 (fusee)
Second wheel 80 pinion 10
Third wheel 75 pinion 10
Escape wheel 30 pinion 10
Beat Rate 3,600 (seconds beating)
Motion work: cannon pinion 10, minute wheel 30, minute pinion 8, hour wheel 32.
Repeating Work: A plunger at the pendant operates the most unusual repeating work which has an hour snail mounted on a star-wheel at the centre which revolves once every 24 hours and hence has two sets of 12 steps. The quarter snail is mounted on the off-set cannon pinion mounted on the second wheel. There is an all-or-nothing piece fitted. The usual six-wheel train of solid brass wheels, the last a plain steel pinion. The train is driven by a mainspring in a fixed barrel screwed to the inside of the back plate. The speed of striking is controlled by adjusting the depth of the last pinion in the train.
Repeating Barrel and Mainspring:
Barrel: a fixed barrel, internal diameter 10.00 mm, height 2.90 mm.
Mainspring: height 2.80 mm, thickness 0.20 mm.
Barrel arbor: diameter 2.5 mm, not snailed.
Hooking: The spring passes through an opening in the barrel wall and is hooked over an external hook in the wall.
Repeating Train
First wheel 44 (barrel)
Second wheel 36 pinion 6
Third wheel 32 pinion 6
Fourth wheel 28 pinion 6
Fifth wheel 28 pinion 6
Sixth pinion 6
Winding system: Key wound.
Dimensions:
Case: diameter 67.3 mm, height 25.1 mm.
Movement: diameter 58.8 mm, height 21.2 mm, pillar height 5.1 mm.
Provenance: Formerly in the Ilbert collection. Ilbert obtained this watch from Contarde 25/3/1937.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
-
Latest: 3 (2017)
-
3 (Jan 1995)
- 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
- 1958,1201.1176
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: CAI.1176 (Ilbert Collection)
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: P145 (Ilbert Ledger)
