Exceptional Discoveries: The Olmsted Complications Collection
Dent, London
A gold hunting cased two train keyless lever minute repeating grande and petite sonnerie clock watch, No. 30937, 1885-86
Auction Closed
December 8, 10:03 PM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Movement: frosted gilded three-quarter plate Nicole, Nielsen & Co. ébauche, lever escapement, free-sprung bi-metallic compensation balance, blued steel hairspring with overcoil, decoratively engraved balance cock, diamond endstone, polished steel hammers repeating on coiled gongs, backplate signed and numbered Dent, Watchmaker to the Queen, 33, Cockspur Street, London, no. 30937 and marked partly Swiss
Dial: white enamel dial, black Roman numerals, blued steel hands, outer minute ring, subsidiary seconds, signed and numbered Dent, 33 Cockspur St, London, 30937
Case: 18k yellow gold case, olivette at 4 o’clock for time setting, short trip repeat slide to band, nibs for strike selection between XI and XII and VI & VII respectively for silence/striking and full strike/quarters only, gold cuvette, case and cuvette with London hallmarks for 1885-86, case maker’s mark AS for Alfred Stram and numbered 30937
Signed: dial and movement signed Dent, 33 Cockspur St. London, case stamped AS for Alfred Stram
Diameter: 56mm
In Vaudrey Mercer’s monograph Edward John Dent and his Successors, published in 1977, the author compiles a list of pieces known to him that, in his words, have “something of interest in their construction.”[i] The list includes many watches with unusual escapements, complications, or other rare features.
Although the list is by no means exhaustive, Mercer highlights four clock watches; the present watch, No. 30937, is not included and was therefore clearly unknown to him. Of the four listed, three have movements by Nicole, Nielsen & Co., and one by Hector Golay. The earliest listed by Mercer is No. 24563, a half-plate minute repeating clock watch, also partially Swiss, circa 1864, and supplied by Golay. The three by Nicole, Nielsen & Co. are: No. 32274, a one-minute tourbillon clock watch with minute repetition, split-seconds chronograph, and perpetual calendar, hallmarked 1901–02 (see Lot 48 in this auction), No. 32601, a ¾ plate quarter-striking clock watch, 1903; No. 32545, a perpetual calendar minute repeating clock watch, 1903.
Further clock watches by Dent, include a gold cased minute repeater (Golay) numbered 24794 (see Replica Shoes ’s London, 16 July 2008 lot 67); a silver cased, quarter repeating clock watch (Nicole, Nielsen) numbered 31052 (Sotheby’s Geneva, 17 May 2000, lot 115). And the famous double dialled Dent Ultra-Complication no. 32573 (Sotheby’s Geneva 2-6 June 2000, lot 34).
[i] Vaudrey Mercer, Edward John Dent and his Successors, Antiquarian Horological Society, 1977, p. 678.