Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, Collector's Watches
Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, Collector's Watches
Property from the Masterworks of Time Collection
John Taylor, Rochdale
A silver open-faced Williams patent keyless winding watch with central quarter seconds indication and stop slide together with a silver open-faced centre seconds keyless lever watch 1904, no. 37802
No reserve
Lot Closed
September 16, 04:43 PM GMT
Estimate
1,100 - 1,700 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Masterworks of Time Collection
John Taylor, Rochdale
A silver open-faced Williams patent keyless winding watch with central quarter seconds indication and stop slide together with a silver open-faced centre seconds keyless lever watch
1904, no. 37802
• Movement: frosted gilded 3/4 plate, lever escapement, going barrel, some jewels in screwed settings, plain fast beating three-arm gold balance, whip acting on the balance staff connected to stop slide on bezel, backplate signed John Taylor, Drake Street, Rochdale, 37802
• Dial: white enamel, Roman numerals, blued steel hands, outer ring calibrated for 16ths of a second and with central chronograph hand, recessed subsidiary seconds, signed Williams Patent No. 4762, Sole Maker - John Taylor, Rochdale
• Case: silver, stop slide above 2 o'clock, plain polished cuvette with aperture for hand-setting, inside case back scratch engraved W. Fowler Barry, Dock, case and cuvettehallmarked London 1904, case maker's mark W.B for William Thomas Bullock and numbered 37802
• Accompanied by: open-faced centre seconds watch, circa 1915, with continental silver case signed Otto Fleck, Glashütte, gilded 2/3 plate movement, gold lever and escape wheel, bi-metallic compensation balance, swan-neck precision regulation, ruby end-stone, silvered dial, Arabic numerals, blued steel hands
Taylor: diameter 58.5mm, Fleck: diameter 57mm
The centre seconds hand of the Williams Patent watch completes one revolution every two seconds; its corresponding seconds ring is calibrated to 16ths of a second with the quarters marked for 8ths. The patent with a diagram was dated March 1890 and the patentee took out two previous patents, the first provisional in 1881 (323), the second in 1883 (4496).
For a similar example dating to 1892 but with key wound rather than keyless winding, see: Sotheby's, The Celebration of the English Watch, Part IV, 6 July 2017, lot 71 and T. Camerer Cuss, The English Watch 1585-1970, ACC 2009, pl. 274, p.424.