Important Watches, Wristwatches and C...

Geneva, Hotel Des Bergues, Oct 18, 1997

LOT 470

Olivier Droz a Besancon, circa 1793. Extremely rare and important silver, double face, Duodecimal and Decimal watch with visible balance and complete Gregorian and Republican calendars.

CHF 12,000 - 15,000

Sold: CHF 26,450

C. Double body, Directoire glazed on both faces. D. White enamel eccentric on the front with Breguet numerals for the duodecimal time, subsidiary dials the month of the Gregorian calendar above, with concentric red indication of the Republican months: Vendemiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivose, Pluviose, Germinal, Floreal, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor; the dates and days of the week of the Gregorian calendar with symbols of their planets. Gold hands. White enamel eccentric on the rear face with Breguet numerals for the ten hours of the Decimal time, subsidiary dials for the thirty dates of the Republican calendar and the ten days of the decade: Primidi, Duodin Tridi, Quantidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi; circular aperture for the visible balance cock and semi-circular sector for the Fast/Slow regulator. Gold hands. M. Hinged gilt brass full plate with cylindrical pillars, fusee with chain, verge escapement, plain brass three-arm balance, flat balance spring and gilt brass continental cock with garnet end-stone. Signed on the dial. Diam. 58 mm.


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Grading System
Grade: AAA

Excellent
Case: 4

Fair
Movement: 4

Fair
Dial: 24-51

Slightly chipped

Partially reprinted

Notes

The Decimal time and the Republican calendar were established by the Convention on 5 October 1793, but if the Republican Calendar was in use in France until the 1st January 1806, the decimal time, which was not obligatory until the 22 September 1794, has never been fully accepted by the population and due to the difficulty to put it into practice, it was abrogated on 7 April 1795. Therefore, if several watches and clocks, showing the Republican calendar were produced, only very few were made with the Decimal time. The very few Decimal watches still in existence, are much thought after by collectors. Most of them were popular watches, made of silver, and arc now often in poor condition, it not recased. They are even rarer with calendar indications. Very few are known to have survived, showing both Duodecimal and Decimal time, together with complete Gregorian and Republican calendars. Beside, the watch now offered for sell, the only other known to exist is in the collection of the Musee Carnavalet, in Paris. It was made by Mermet Cadet in Besancon. Exhibited in the M.I.H., La Chaux-de-Fonds, in 1989, it is described and illustrated in La Revolution (tans la Mesure du Temps, published by the Musee International d ' Horlogerie, the same year, under the direction of the Curator, Catherine Cardinale, pp. 60-61, but all the indications were displayed on one face only.