centre-seconds watch;
pendulum watch
- Museum number
- 1958,1201.1250
- Description
-
Centre-seconds watch.
Lever escapement.
Coloured enamel dial; pendulum in dial; subsidiary time.
- Production date
- 1855-1865
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 36.90 millimetres (back-plate)
-
Diameter: 38.60 millimetres (dial)
-
Thickness: 11.30 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Comment from Richard Good, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. Vol. V (Unpublished manuscript)
Maker anonymous.(1)
Switzerland, c. 1860
'Pendulum' watch movement with a club tooth lever escapement.
Signature: None
Case: Missing
Dial and Hands: An offset hour and minute dial with the centre seconds hand registering on an outer dial showing seconds, and numbered at every five. Blued-steel hands, the hour not original. A kidney shaped opening lined with gilded copper shows the `pendulum'. The dial painted with what would appear to be two flower girls seated either side of basket of flowers.
Movement:
Ebauche Marks: 899
Frame: 3/4 plate. The back plate stamped 99 and under both balance cocks and the combined pallet and escape wheel cock is stamped 9. The second wheel is offset with the fourth wheel being at the centre of the movement. Three turned pillars support the back plate, which is secured by screws.
Barrel and Mainspring: Geneva stop work. Recessed cover to the going barrel: I. diameter 15.3 mm, height 2.6 mm.
Mainspring: height 2.4 mm, thickness 0.20 mm.
Arbor: diameter 5.0 mm., not snailed.
Hooking: square.
Train: Wheels gilded one side with 5 crossings except for escape which has 4.
Jewelled: From the third onwards, the jewels rubbed in. Ruby endstones in both balance cocks:
Escapement: Club tooth lever, right angle layout, short lever, single roller, impulse pin elliptical. Equidistant locking escapement. Pallet stones enclosed, convex on both impulse and locking faces. Escape wheel steel with chamfered teeth.
Number of teeth embraced 3½.
Balance: Bimetallic balance but not split. Balance diameter 14.5 mm., height 0.8 mm. Blued-steel flat spiral spring with 11 turns. Balance pivot broken.
Means of Regulation: Index on the balance cock registering against a divided scale with engraved 'FAST SLOW'.
Train Counts and Beat Rate:
Great wheel (barrel) 80
Centre wheel 64 pinion 10
Third wheel 60 pinion 8
Fourth wheel 60 pinion 8
Escape wheel 15 pinion 6
Segment 16, segment driving a pinion on the balance staff this is 12.
Beat Rate: 18,000
Motion Work: cannon pinion 10
Minute wheel 30, minute pinion 8
hour wheel 32
Winding System: Keywound
Dimensions: Movement diameter 38.8 mm., height 11.2 mm
Provenance: Formerly in the Ilbert collection. Ilbert purchased this in the Caledonian market 26/5/1933
Note:
(1) Possibly a Juvet watch. This is a late example of a pendulum watch.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
-
Latest: 4 (2017) some rust on centre seconds boss
-
2 (Feb 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
- 1958,1201.1250
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: CAI.1250 (Ilbert Collection)
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: N65 (Ilbert Ledger)