Lot 416

Ernst Kutter

A historically interesting Swiss pocket watch with original box, sold by Ernst Kutter in Stuttgart

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This interesting pocket watch was always family-owned. It belonged to German consular officer Max Müller, whose initials "MM" (Max Müller) are ornately engraved on the back lid. Müller was born in Stuttgart in 1879. He eventually joined the Foreign Office and in 1904 was transferred to China, where he became vice-consul in Shanghai in 1906. In 1910 he was made consul in Hankow. Müller returned to Germany when WWI started in 1914 and transferred to Graz in 1919. In 1928 he went to England and held the position of consul there until 1935. Because of his distance to the Nazi regime he was called back. Müller never recovered from this disappointment and died in 1950.
This watch is illustrated and described in: Sammler Journal, issue 12/2005, p. 36f.

Ernst Kutter, born in 1824 in Sulz on the Neckar, was a versatile watch- and clockmaker who among others trained with Matthias Hipp in Reutlingen. He did not only produce pocket watches but also precision pendulum clocks which were used for example in the observatories at Neuenburg, Vienna and Geneva. Friedtjof Nansen used a marine chronometer made by Kutter during one of his polar expeditions. In 1904 Kutter transferred his business to two of his employees; he died in 1905. The shop in Stuttgart founded by his father-in-law founded in 1825 still exists today.