Important Collector's Watches, Pocket...

Geneva, Nov 11, 2007

LOT 124

Au Citoyen Falsety Breguet, No. 23, sold to Citoyen Falsety on 3 Vendémiaire, An 7 (September 24th, 1799), for 1,595 francs. Extremely fine and extremely rare, 20K gold ?repetition, echapt. isolé?, jump-hour, five minuterepeating à toc pocket watch with ruby cylinder escapement.

CHF 80,000 - 100,000

EUR 50,000 - 60,000 / USD 67,000 - 85,000

C. Three-body, ?early type?, No. 244, by Guillaume Mermillod (master mark), engine-turned, the back with central applied gold disc decorated with a blue enamel monogram, concealed hinge. Gilt brass dust cover. D. White enamel by F. Cave, Pl. Thionu, Breguet numerals, outer star minute indexes and lozenge quarter-hour indexes, secret signature. Blued steel ?Breguet? hands. M. 48 mm. (21 1/2???), gilt, Lépine caliber, standing barrel, overhanging ruby cylinder escapement, plain three-arm steel balance with parachute on the top pivot, blued steel flat balance spring, index regulator with bimetallic temperature compensation curb, all-or-nothing repeating with a single hammer on the side of the case activated by depressing the pendant. Dial, dial plate and dust cover signed. Diam. 56 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3-15

Good

Slightly rusted
Movement: 3*

Good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 3-45-46-01

Good

HANDS Original

Notes

In Breguet?s workbooks escapements are rarely specified and the present watch is one of only a handful to be described as ?répétition garde-temps échappement isolé?. Breguet must have considered this watch to have sufficient merit to be called ?garde-temps? ? a description reserved only for the finest timekeepers. Later the term ?garde-temps? applied only to watches with chronometer escapements and is usually only applicable to those. The movement of No. 23 is of the new caliber started in 1799 and is called the Lépine caliber after the the famous Parisian watchmaker Jean- Antoine Lépine. This watch is illustrated in ?The Art of Breguet?, George Daniels, 1975, p. 154.