Lot 441

Charles Adolphe Montandon, Movement No. 22345, 54 mm, 188 g, circa 1868
A heavy hunting case pocket watch with one-minute tourbillon and mahogany box
Case: 18k gold, tiered, polished, gold dome. Dial: enamel, radial Roman hours, auxiliary seconds, signed, filigree blued steel hands. Movm.: bridge movement, keywind, stripe-decorated, nickel-plated, chain/fusee, mirror polished tourbillon steel cage, screwed gold chaton, club-tooth lever escapement, gold screw compensation balance, blued balance spring.
The manufacturer Charles Adolphe Montandon in Le Locle evidently had relations to the American market, as indicated by an 1873 US patent for one of his watch designs. We know of another chronometer tourbillon no. 18643 in a hunting case by the same maker that emerged at an auction in Geneva in 1984; it was produced around 1865 and its description resembles this piece quite closely. Both watches belong to the so-called second generation that developed in the early 1960s in Switzerland in conjunction with the creation of the Neuchâtel observatory - these timepieces are characterized by lighter cages and balances, which obviously had a strong effect on the precision of the watches: the daily rate of drift was reduced to up to a quarter of that common at the time of Breguet. There is no doubt that the design and the making of this watch are not by Montandon but by one of the few tourbillon specialists at the time such as Ernest Guinand of Le Locle or Auguste Grether of Les-Ponts-de-Martel.

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