- Museum number
- 1958,1201.1204
- Description
-
MOVEMENT AND DIAL OF A LEVER WATCH.
Lever escapement; Fasoldt's chronometer.
Enamel dial.
- Production date
- 1865
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 45 millimetres (dial)
-
Thickness: 12 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Comment from Richard Good, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. Vol. V (Unpublished manuscript)
Made by Charles Fasoldt
Albany, USA, 1870
Movement of a watch with Fasoldt's lever escapement.
Signature: On the combined escape wheel and fourth wheel cock 'C. FASOLDT, ALBANY, N.Y.'. On the combined centre wheel and third wheel cock 'PAT. FEB. 1. 1859 APR. 5. 1864 & MARCH 7, 1865.'. On the dial 'C. FASOLDTS PATENT CHRONOMETER ALBANY N.Y.'
Case: Missing. The movement was retained in the case by two locating pegs and a single dog screw.
Dials and hands: flat dial with a sunk subsidiary seconds dial, the dial feet retained by two feet and dog screws. Blued-steel lyre pattern hour and minute hands. Blued-steel seconds hand.
Dial-plate: None intended.
Dust-cap: None intended.
Movement:
Ebauche marks: 174.
Frame: Bar movement with a front plate recessed for the barrel and for the escapement and with spotted decoration around the rear edge of the plate. On the front of the front plate there is separate bridge for the barrel and a combined bridge for the third and fourth wheels and a further bridge for the escapement. On the rear of the front plate there are separate bridges for the barrel and for the pallets. The pallet bridge is inscribed 'NO. 338.'. There is a combined cock for the centre and third wheels, another combined cock for the third and escape wheels. The plain balance cock and the pallet bridge are punched 74 on the underside. The number 174 is punched on the front plate and the various bridges mounted on it.
Barrel and Mainspring:
Barrel, gilded, with four-turn Geneva stop-work on the cover. Internal diameter 18.5 mm, height 3.75 mm. The ratchet wheel made of brass, with pivoted steel click and brass spring.
Mainspring: height 2.90 mm, thickness 0.24 mm.
Barrel arbor: 6.2 mm, snailed.
Hooking: round.
Going train: All the wheels gilded, the centre, third and fourth wheels with six crossings. The wheels are unusually thick and the centre and third wheels have the centre portion sunk below the thickness of the rim. The fourth wheel is of uniform thickness.
Jewelling: The pivots of the third, fourth and escapement arbors in clear sapphire jewel holes. All the jewels are rubbed in. Only the balance jewels have endstones, the front jewel for the balance is set into a polished steel coqueret. The train jewels are flat on the underside and very domed on the upper side with small oil reservoirs.
Escapement: Fasoldt's lever escapement, similar to cat. no. 262 (registration no. 1958,1201.1199) with two coaxilly mounted gilded brass escape wheels, both with four crossings sunk below the thickness of the wheels. The larger wheel is locked and released alternately by one or other of the two lower pallets. The large upper pallet receives and transmits impulse in one direction only to the balance via an impulse pin set on a large radius from the balance centre. On the lever, all three pallets are jewelled. The impulse 'roller' is a bar carrying a round impulse pin, the small roller recessed to lighten it. The safety action is provided by a hollowed roller on the balance staff and short horns on the fork, working on the same principle as the Massey roller. Banking pins are set in the front plate.
Balance and Spring: A split bimetallic two-armed balance with platinum compensation screws, the steel parts blued. Balance diameter 19.3 mm, thickness 1.6 mm. A blued-steel flat spiral spring with 18 turns and a terminal curve pinned to a gilded stud on the balance cock table.
Means of Regulation: A similar to cat. no. 262 (1958,1201.1199), with U-shaped index consists of an outer end with curb pins, a sprung curved section and a foot which is integral with the stud is screwed to the balance cock. In this example, however the components are made from gilded brass instead of gold. Fine adjustment is made by turning the long screw set in the free end of the index beyond the pins. The pins move in an arc of a circle of very large radius. Both the curb pins and the stud will move, the stud less than the pins, thus regulating the watch will also put it out of beat.
Train Counts and Beat Rate:
Great wheel 80 (barrel)
Centre wheel 80 pinion 10
Third wheel 75 pinion 10
Fourth wheel 80 pinion 10
Escape wheel 15 pinion 8
Beats per hour: 18,000
Motion work:
cannon pinion 12
minute pinion 10, minute wheel 36
hour wheel 40
Winding System: Key wound.
Dimensions:
Movement: diameter 45.0 mm, height 8.2 mm, frame height 7.33 mm.
Provenance: Formerly in the Ilbert Collection. Purchased by Ilbert from Jauncy in 1931
Notes:
For similar watches with this type of escapement see Clutton and Daniels, 'Watches', pp. 42, 133 and 134, see also Chamberlain, 'It's About Time', pp. 92-94 and 135-136.
See Joachim Mauss, 'Charles Fasoldt Individualist im Meer der Massenproduction', Alte Uhren, October 1984, pp. 16-20.
- 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
- 1958,1201.1204
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: CAI.1204 (Ilbert Collection)
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Previous owner/ex-collection number: L125 (Ilbert Ledger)
