Lot 305

Paul Buhré St. Petersburg

A collection of 2 gold hunting case pocket watches
A fine, heavy hunting case pocket watch with chronograph and 60-minute counter running backwards

Sold

Paul Buhré took over the watch business from his father - also Paul Buhré - who had established it in 1815 in St Petersburg. He was purveyor to the court of the Russian Tsar and had branches in Moscow. The Buhré family was one of the most important retailers of watches in Russia, importing most of their timepieces from Switzerland. Around 1880 Paul Buhré founded a watch factory in Le Locle under his name, with Swiss watchmaker Paul Othenin-Girard as director of the company. When the company founder retired, Othenin-Girard continued the business together with his brother-in-law, watchmaker Georges Pfund in St Petersburg. During the revolution in 1917 the market in Russia collapsed and Buhré began specialising in deck watches, marine chronometers, chronographs and small pendulum table clocks. In 1963 Buhré was taken over by the DIXI group.