Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
Small Swiss Quarter Repeating Cylinder Pocket Watch, circa 1830
- Maker / attribution
- Unrecorded in source
- Date
- c. 1830
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- Switzerland
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Stock no.
- A9644
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Pieces of Time (A9644)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Small Swiss Quarter Repeating Cylinder Pocket Watch (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Pieces of Time (dealer), London (stock number A9644), this is a pocket watch, made in Switzerland, dated c. 1830. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Pocket Watches collection. The record is illustrated with 4 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — Pieces of Time
A 19 th Century Swiss quarter repeating cylinder in a gold open face case. Small keywind gilt bar movement with suspended going barrel. Plain cock with blue steel regulator, plain three arm gilt balance with blue steel spiral hairspring. Polished steel cylinder, steel escape wheel. Push pendant quarter repeating on two rectangular section polished steel gongs. Silver engine turned dial with Roman numerals, gold Breguet hands. Small 18 carat open face case, deeply chased and engraved bezels, engine turned back, small monogram in the centre. Gold push pendant, wound and set through the signed gold cuvette. A well made attractive watch in excellent overall condition, the engine turning still crisp
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
From 1750 to 1850 the watch became a precision instrument. Mudge's lever escapement, the cylinder escapement, Lépine's thin bar calibre, Breguet's innovations (overcoil, tourbillon, perpétuelle) and the pocket chronometer of Arnold and Earnshaw all date from this period, while verge watches remained common in cheaper production.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Repeating watches
Before electric light, telling the time in the dark was a real problem. Repeating watches strike the time on demand when a slide or push-piece is operated: quarter repeaters sound hours and quarters, minute repeaters hours, quarters and minutes. Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare disputed the invention in London in the 1680s. Early repeaters struck on a bell inside the case; Abraham-Louis Breguet introduced the gong (a coiled steel wire) around 1780, allowing thinner watches.
Repeaters require a separate train with racks, snails and a governor to control the striking speed, and are among the most demanding complications to make and adjust. Swiss makers of the Vallée de Joux specialised in repeating ébauches in the nineteenth century.
What to look for
- A slide on the case band or a push-piece through the pendant.
- Gongs encircling the movement (after c. 1780) or a bell in the case (earlier); pierced case for sound.
- The racks, snails and governor visible under the dial or on the movement.
- Terms such as 'Minutes', 'Quarts' or 'Répétition' on the dial or cuvette.
Dating clues
- Bell-striking quarter repeaters: c. 1690–1800.
- Gong repeaters and dumb repeaters (striking on the case): after c. 1780.
- Minute repeaters became more common after c. 1830 with Vallée de Joux ébauches.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Minute repeaterMinute repeater
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