{"title":"Shop by Maker: Prestige Names","description":"Pocket watches by the houses that define the field: Patek Philippe, Breguet, Vacheron Constantin, Rolex, Cartier and their peers. Each piece is researched in depth, documented where records survive, and described exactly as it is.","products":[{"product_id":"breitling-sprint-stopwatch-caliber-411-multi-sport-dial-c-1967-1970","title":"Sprint Multi-Sport Referee Stopwatch, Red Sector Dial, c.1967","description":"\u003cp\u003eA genuine piece of sporting history. The Breitling Geneve Sprint referee stopwatch carries the bold red sector dial and sport icons that made it a fixture on sidelines from basketball courts to football pitches. Mechanical Swiss precision.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Breitling Geneve Sprint was designed not for the wrist but for the referee's pocket - a Swiss-made mechanical timing instrument for professional sport.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eProduced in the late 1960s, when Breitling still used a chrome case construction (the brand switched to resin in the 1970s, making this a pre-transition example), the Sprint was Breitling's answer to the referee's need for a reliable, legible, and robust mechanical timer. This example carries the iconic multi-sport dial: a graphic white lacquered face with a bold red sector timing zone and a ring of illustrated sport icons marking the playing periods for swimming, basketball, football, rugby, hockey, and water polo. One stopwatch, every sport.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe movement is a Caliber 411 lever-escapement stopwatch mechanism - a purpose-built instrument calibre rather than a wristwatch movement repurposed for timing duty. It winds by the knurled crown at the top, starts and stops cleanly on the upper pusher, and resets with a satisfying snap via the side pusher. This example runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe case retains its original three-part chrome construction with the signature matte black bakelite mid-ring intact. The brushed caseback carries light honest surface wear consistent with decades of use. The red sector on the dial shows some wear and fading in the lower zone - present, legible, but not pristine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA crossover piece: chrome-era Sprint for Breitling collectors, a period artefact for sports memorabilia collectors, and a strong graphic design object in its own right.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo box or papers. Running and fully functional.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Breitling","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54239828312403,"sku":"PW-0029","price":420.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/breitling-chrome-pocket-watch-c1967-front.jpg?v=1783556485"},{"product_id":"rolex-7-worlds-records-rolled-gold-open-face-sub-seconds-art-deco-44-7mm-1928","title":"'7 World's Records', a Sheffield Presentation, 1928","description":"\u003cp\u003eA genuine 1920s Rolex pocket watch, fully original and still running well, carrying a dated 1928 presentation from the office staff of one of Sheffield's oldest manufacturing houses. Rolex pocket watches are scarce; one with documented provenance and this much honesty is scarcer still.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRolex is known today for wristwatches, but in the 1920s the Geneva firm still produced a small number of finely finished pocket watches, and this is a correct and complete example of the type. The dial is signed Rolex above the sub-seconds register, the nickel lever movement is signed Rolex 15 Jewels Swiss Made with fast\/slow (A\/R) regulation, and the inside of the case back carries the full Rolex cartouche: \"7 World's Records, Gold Medal, Geneva Suisse, Rolled Gold, Guaranteed to wear 10 years,\" with case number 50361. Dial, movement and case all speak to each other. There is no redial, no married movement, nothing out of place, which is not something that can be said of many surviving Rolex pocket watches.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dial is the highlight: a silvered plate with a radiating guilloche sunburst, painted Arabic numerals and fine blued-steel Breguet hands. It has survived with only the faintest central oxidisation and no chips, cracks or flaking. Behind the bezel sits an excellent, unmarked crystal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat sets this piece apart is the case back. It is engraved: \"Presented to Robert Harris by the office staff of Wm. Whiteley \u0026amp; Sons Ltd as a mark of esteem, 23rd June 1928.\" William Whiteley \u0026amp; Sons of Sheffield, founded in 1760, is the oldest scissor and shear maker in the Western world and became a limited company only in 1920. This inscription does two things: it fixes the date of the watch precisely to 1928, and it ties it to a real person and a historic English firm. It is the kind of provenance that cannot be faked or reproduced, and it turns an already desirable Rolex into a one-of-one object with a story.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe case is rolled gold rather than solid, which is honest to state and is the only thing that separates this watch in price from its solid-gold siblings, which sell for several times more. In every other respect, this is an exceptional survivor: it winds smoothly, sets cleanly and runs well, the dial is clean and the case is bright with only minor wear at the hinge. For a collector who wants a genuine early Rolex with real character and a documented 1928 provenance, without the solid-gold price, this is a rare opportunity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rolex","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54249597960531,"sku":"PW-0074","price":1195.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/rolex-gold-filled-pocket-watch-1928-front.jpg?v=1783621314"},{"product_id":"ulysse-nardin-silver-split-seconds-observatory-chronometer-neuchatel-1937","title":"Silver Split-Seconds Chronometer, Neuchâtel Trials, 1937","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA documented 1937 Neuchatel Observatory competition watch: a sterling silver Ulysse Nardin split-seconds chronograph with a Guillaume balance, still running and splitting exactly as it should.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe most compact of the observatory pieces in this collection, and the one in silver: an open-face split-seconds chronograph of 54.7mm, entered by Ulysse Nardin in the 1937 pocket-chronometer trials at Neuchâtel. The certificate extract accompanies it and records an official rating of +1.52 seconds per day: a hand-made mechanism, carrying a second full complication, holding to within a second and a half a day under observatory examination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is white enamel in excellent order, signed Ulysse Nardin, Locle \u0026amp; Genève and marked Chronomètre, with bold Breguet numerals, blued steel Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip, a thirty-minute register at twelve and constant seconds at six carrying the movement number. Two centre hands run together, one of them lacquered oxblood red; press the button and one stops to take a split while the other carries on, then flies back to rejoin it. Both the chronograph and the split work correctly, and the watch winds, sets and runs as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sterling silver case is Ulysse Nardin's own, numbered, and it wears its age openly: an even patina and the handling marks of nine decades, with nothing hidden and nothing polished away. The dial and the movement are the reason the watch exists, and both remain in the condition the trials demanded.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf the four Neuchâtel chronometers in this collection, each has its own year, its own metal and its own result. This is 1937's, and the silver one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the trial entry and rating are set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ulysse Nardin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54343668138323,"sku":"PW-0091","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/1_8f573872-8cea-400a-be00-cfbd05f1514c_Hero.jpg?v=1785249767"},{"product_id":"ulysse-nardin-steel-split-seconds-observatory-chronometer-neuchatel-1953","title":"Split-Seconds Chronometer in Rare Stainless Steel, 1953","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA documented Neuchâtel Observatory split-seconds chronometer by Ulysse Nardin, cased in rare stainless steel. One of the hardest complications in watchmaking, offered with a factory extract that names its first owner.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best documented of the observatory pieces in this collection. A split-seconds chronograph of 65.2mm in stainless steel, entered by Ulysse Nardin in the 1953 pocket-chronometer trials at Neuchâtel, and traceable from the competition bench to its first owner: the factory extract records that on 20 April 1954 the watch was delivered to Rodolfo Oscar Linke, a dealer in Genoa, one of only five of this calibre supplied to him. Few vintage watches of any kind carry paperwork that specific.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe movement is the spectacle. Ulysse Nardin's 24-ligne split-seconds calibre fills the case almost to its edge, and it is finished to be looked at: skeletonised steel bridges in black polish, gilt wheels, gold jewel settings, the clamps of the split-seconds mechanism visible at work around their column wheel. The serial is engraved on the movement and, unusually, printed into the small-seconds register of the dial itself, so case, dial and movement declare their partnership openly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is white grand feu enamel without a hairline, signed and marked Chronomètre, with bold black Breguet numerals, a thirty-minute recorder at twelve, running seconds at six carrying the serial, and a chapter divided to tenths of a second. The time is told by rose gold Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip; the two blued steel centre hands run, split and catch exactly as they should, and the watch winds, sets and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt comes with its original red leather travel case, worn at the edges and intact, and with the factory extract that names its trial, its régleur and its first buyer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the 1953 submission and the delivery record are set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ulysse Nardin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54343668203859,"sku":"PW-0092","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/1_9619a2c2-7a45-4360-822b-668e80ef9f93_Hero.jpg?v=1785249285"},{"product_id":"ulysse-nardin-steel-split-seconds-chronometer-first-prize-neuchatel-1933","title":"Split-Seconds Chronometer, First Prize at Neuchâtel, 1933","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA working split-seconds chronograph that competed at the Neuchatel Observatory and won a First Prize chronometer bulletin in 1933. Documented, and complete with its original box.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf all the observatory watches in this collection, this is the one that won. In 1933 Ulysse Nardin entered movement 17731 in the pocket-chronometer trials at the Neuchâtel Observatory, where entries were rated for weeks, position by position and temperature by temperature, against astronomical time. It came away with the First Prize in the first class. The bulletin survives, the extract accompanies the watch, and the full result is set out in The Record below.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat makes the piece remarkable is that the precision lives inside a complication. This is a split-seconds chronograph: two centre hands sweep together, one stops at a press to catch an intermediate time, and snaps forward to rejoin its partner at the next. Regulating an ordinary watch to prize standard is hard; regulating one carrying rattrapante works is the summit of the craft, and everything here still functions exactly as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe watch is built as an instrument. The case is polished steel in the full Goliath format, 65.9mm, with both covers closing firmly and the maker's cartouche inside. The dial is white grand feu enamel without a hairline or a chip: bold Breguet numerals under a blued steel poire hour hand, a thirty-minute recorder at twelve, small seconds at six carrying the movement number, and an outer track dividing each second into fifths, the scale the trials were read on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt winds, sets and runs correctly; the chronograph starts, stops and resets cleanly, and the split hand divides and catches exactly as designed. It is complete in its original Ulysse Nardin fitted box.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUlysse Nardin sent watches to Neuchâtel for decades, and the house's standing rests on results like this one. Most surviving pieces of the type can claim the family resemblance; this one holds the prize itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the 1933 result and the observatory extract are set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ulysse Nardin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54343668236627,"sku":"PW-0093","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/1_c6cf8172-1e60-49bc-ba74-c8af9a6e65b2_Hero.jpg?v=1785190322"},{"product_id":"ulysse-nardin-steel-split-seconds-observatory-chronometer-neuchatel-1943","title":"Split-Seconds Chronometer, First Class at Neuchâtel, 1943","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA documented First-Class observatory chronometer from the 1943 Neuchatel trials, cased as a split-seconds chronograph and complete with its original box and results extract.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne watch, doing two difficult things at once: keeping observatory-grade time, and driving a split-seconds chronograph while it does so. Ulysse Nardin entered this movement, number 121026, in the 1943 pocket-chronometer trials at Neuchâtel and placed in the first class; the printed extract accompanies the watch and the result is set out in The Record below.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the hand it is an instrument before it is anything else: a Goliath of 64.6mm in Staybrite stainless steel, hinged back, inner dust cover, a watch with the presence of a piece of laboratory equipment. The dial is white vitreous enamel, laid out for timing: bold Breguet numerals, violet-blued Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip, a thirty-minute counter at twelve, running seconds at six, an outer fifth-of-a-second track, signed Ulysse Nardin, Chronomètre, Locle Suisse and numbered to match the movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe split-seconds works from a large button on the case band: one centre hand stops to read an intermediate time while the other runs on, then the two snap back together. Start, stop and reset run through the crown pusher. Every function engages cleanly, and the watch winds, sets and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne honest fault, named up front: a small chip to the crystal rim near the seven. The crystal is a replaceable part, and the watch behind it is unaffected.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is supplied in its original Ulysse Nardin Locle-Genève fitted box together with the observatory extract, a pairing that rarely survives intact. Watches of this class were made in small numbers for a purpose that no longer exists, and the ones that can still show their results are the ones that matter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the 1943 placing is set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ulysse Nardin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54343668531539,"sku":"PW-0094","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/ulysse-nardin-staybrite-stainless-steel-pocket-watch-1_hero_141fced3-3b11-4416-a656-dc8a162a71d1.jpg?v=1785179042"},{"product_id":"longines-18k-gold-pocket-watch-1937-cal-17-95-vroom-dreesmann-provenance","title":"18k Gold Open-Face, an Amsterdam Family Gift, 1937","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAn 18k gold Longines pocket watch given as a family gift in Amsterdam in 1937, complete with its original box, certificate, and the note it was given with. Fully documented, single-family history from new.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the 8th of October 1937, in Amsterdam, Cisca Tombrock turned seventy-five, and she marked the day in a way few grandmothers could: she gave each of her thirty-three grandchildren an identical gold Longines pocket watch. This is the one that went to seven-year-old Wim Vroom, and the case back still carries the gift in Dutch: Aan Wim Vroom ter gelegenheid van Oma's 75sten verjaardag, Amsterdam 8 Oct. 1937.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe family could afford the gesture. Cisca's husband Willem Vroom had co-founded Vroom \u0026amp; Dreesmann in 1887 with his brother-in-law Anton Dreesmann, building it from a single Amsterdam shop, fixed low prices, cash only, into one of the largest department store chains in the Netherlands. Wim himself took another path: economics, then art history, then the Rijksmuseum, where he directed the Department of Dutch History from 1971 to 1995.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe watch nearly lost all of this. It later passed through an auction house that catalogued it for its gold weight alone. A specialist Dutch dealer bought it, noticed the engraved name, traced it back to the Vroom family, and the family confirmed the story. Everything given with it in 1937 is still with it now: the fitted presentation box, the signed Longines Certificat de Garantie dated 20 October 1937, the woven chatelaine cord with its fob seal, the leather pouch, and the original handwritten gift note.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe watch itself deserves the story. It is an open-face dress watch in solid 18k gold, 44.4mm, its curved step case carrying 46.9 grams, with a clean, unrestored cream dial, applied gold lance markers doubled at twelve, matching gold lance hands, a dot minute track and sub-seconds at six. The movement is one of Longines' high-grade ultra-thin calibres, invoiced by the factory in 1924 and cased thirteen years later for the birthday; its serial matches the case and the certificate exactly. It winds, sets and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProvenance is usually a story someone tells. Here it is an unbroken, papered chain from factory invoice to a named gift on a named day, through rediscovery, to now.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the gift and its papers are set out in Provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Longines","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54369703854419,"sku":"PW-0090","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/longines-18k-gold-pocket-watch-1_2a8deeb3-9d48-4473-8f48-fe5c81fa561f_hero.jpg?v=1785267306"},{"product_id":"patek-philippe-platinum-diamond-open-face-pocket-watch-circa-1937","title":"Platinum, Original Factory Diamond-Set Dial, c.1937","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA solid platinum Patek Philippe with an original factory diamond-set dial, the most luxurious specification the house built into a pocket watch. Adjusted to five positions, in excellent original condition.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Patek Philippe wanted to make the most luxurious pocket watch in its catalogue, this is what it specified: a case in solid platinum, and a dial set with diamonds at the factory. This is that watch, made around 1937, at the very end of the great pocket watch era and at the very top of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case is platinum through and through, 43.95mm, in a late Art Deco form with a geometric octagonal bow and a fluted crown, the cool grey of the metal setting the register for everything else. The dial is original and silvered, with eleven diamond hour markers: eight square-cut stones in claw settings and three baguettes at twelve, three and nine, an engine-turned sub-seconds ring at six, a dot minute track, and slim white leaf hands over the whole. Nothing about it was added later; the layout is deliberate and factory-fitted, jewellery executed with a watchmaker's restraint.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBehind the dial is caliber 17-140 at the house's fullest specification, finished and adjusted the way Patek reserved for its best; the movement is itemised in the drawer below, and it winds smoothly, sets cleanly and runs well. The English-language markings point to a watch built for an English-speaking export market.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCondition carries the piece into its own class. The platinum is crisp with sharp marks, the dial near-perfect with every diamond present and secure, the crystal clean. Platinum resists the polishing that softens gold cases, and this one shows the benefit: edges as they were cut. It is supplied as seen, without box or papers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the dating and archive route are set out in The Archive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe \u0026 Cie, Genève","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54369704902995,"sku":"PW-0095","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/Patek-Diamond-Hero_hero.jpg?v=1785266637"},{"product_id":"cartier-paris-londres-18k-gold-ruby-set-pocket-watch-circa-1925","title":"18ct Gold, a Full Baguette Ruby Border, c.1925","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA signed Cartier dress pocket watch in solid 18k gold, ringed with a full baguette ruby border. Jewellery-grade Cartier from the height of the Art Deco period, and it still runs.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Cartier evening watch of the mid-1920s, at the scale the house judged right for the job: 31mm of solid 18k gold, slim enough for the pocket of a dinner jacket, wound and set from the pendant. What lifts it beyond the plain gold examples is the caseband: a continuous border of baguette rubies, channel-set the whole way round, every stone present. In the hand the border reads as a thin line of colour; under light it comes alive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is two-tone silver with an engine-turned centre, stylised Art Deco Arabic numerals and blued Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip, signed Cartier, Paris-Londres. It is original and untouched, carrying light spotting to the centre and around the upper numerals exactly as an unrestored dial of this age should, with the signature still crisp.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCartier in the 1920s was making watches as jewellery and jewellery as watches, and this piece sits precisely on that line: a working lever movement inside a case built like a ring. The movement winds smoothly, sets correctly and runs well. The gold shows the honest scratches of an evening watch that went out often; the rubies show only light surface wear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGem-set Cartier pocket watches were made in small numbers and tend to stay in collections once they arrive. This one is complete, signed, running and whole.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the movement's attribution is set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cartier","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54369705787731,"sku":"PW-0096","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/cartier-18k-yellow-gold-calibre-ruby-set-band-pocket-watch-23_hero.jpg?v=1785325110"},{"product_id":"patek-philippe-open-face-pocket-watch-goldsmiths-silversmiths-c-1914","title":"Retailed by Goldsmiths \u0026 Silversmiths, Crested, c.1914","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA genuine Patek Philippe pocket watch of around 1914, retailed by the Goldsmiths \u0026amp; Silversmiths Company of Regent Street, its case back cut with the arms of the family who first ordered it. It winds, sets and runs exactly as it should.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis watch had two birthplaces. The movement was made in Geneva by Patek Philippe around 1914, finished to the standard that made the name; the case that received it was made in London, by the Goldsmiths \u0026amp; Silversmiths Company of 112 Regent Street, who sold the finished watch across their counter. Geneva precision in London gold was how the best English customers bought their Pateks, and this piece still carries both halves of that partnership in its metal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIts first owner then made it his: the back is engraved with the full arms of his family, helmets, shield and quarterings complete, with an entwined cypher on the outer case. Arms of this kind were not decoration; they were identity, cut for a family entitled to bear them, and they give the watch a first chapter most plain examples lost long ago.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe silvered dial is laid out in the restrained Geneva dress style of the era: painted black Breguet numerals, the slanted, flourished figures the great houses used on their formal watches, blued steel Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip, and a printed railway minute track. The surface has aged to a warm, gently mottled tone, the soft marks of a century of ownership rather than any damage or restoration. It is unsigned, which is correct for a Patek supplied through a retailer, who often left the dial plain rather than add a name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 46.9mm it is a full-size gentleman's open-face watch, in 18ct white gold, supplied on its chain. The keyless lever movement winds smoothly, sets cleanly and runs as it should, with the hand-finishing visible under the dust cover doing quiet justice to the signature on the plate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the London casing, the coat of arms and the archive route are set out in Provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe \u0026 Cie, Genève","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54371088302419,"sku":"PW-0101","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-cie-gen-ve-18ct-white-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1789237038"},{"product_id":"piaget-18k-gold-envelope-secret-watch-ref-9513-cal-9p-c-1965","title":"The 'Envelope' in 18k Woven Gold, Ref. 9513, c.1965","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePush the centre of the woven gold flap and a Piaget watch rises to meet you. Solid 18k gold, a blue sapphire cabochon crown, and the record-setting ultra-thin calibre 9P hidden inside.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt rest it is a small envelope of woven 18k gold, about the size of a matchbook, its basketweave worked by hand and framed with a bright polished border. Press the centre of the flap and it opens: the watch inside lifts on its hinge and stands upright, a white dial with black Roman numerals and blued steel hands, signed Piaget. Read the time, close the flap, and the watch disappears back into the gold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePiaget made very few objects this quietly theatrical. The envelope belongs to the Maison's great decade of dressed-up watchmaking, made around 1965 as a travel and desk piece for people who wanted the time nearby but not on show: on a night table, in a jacket pocket, beside a hotel telephone. The winding crown is set with a sapphire cabochon, the small blue full stop Piaget put on its dress pieces, and a French owl import mark is tucked into the weave, the trace of the watch's journey when it was new.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason the trick works at all is a movement thin enough to vanish inside a case the depth of a few stacked coins; its story is told in The Calibre below. What matters in the hand is the object itself: 42.7 by 31.1 millimetres of woven gold, dense, hinged and precise, as much goldsmithing as watchmaking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eComplete, honest examples are not easy to find, because these were used: carried, packed, opened a dozen times a day. This one has survived with the weave even and intact, the polished borders bright and the dial clean, and it winds and runs correctly. It keeps its original black Piaget pouch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the movement's story is told in The Calibre.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Piaget","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54371090465107,"sku":"PW-0113","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/piaget-18k-yellow-gold-curiosity-item-1_Hero_4b01772d-86f3-4489-8626-ae39d61e207d.jpg?v=1787943466"},{"product_id":"no-1852-authenticated-by-breguets-patrimony-1914","title":"No. 1852, Confirmed by Breguet's Archive Records, 1914","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA genuine Breguet pendant watch of 1914, its 18ct gold case worked in royal-blue guilloche enamel and centred with a rose-cut diamond rosette. Confirmed by Breguet's Patrimony department from its own archive records, with documented Paris provenance and its original matching enamel-and-pearl chain.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA pendant watch of 26.7mm, small enough to sit in the hollow of a palm, and finished the way only a great Paris house finishes small things. The back is translucent royal-blue enamel over engine-turning, held inside a white enamel border, and at its centre sits a pinwheel rosette of rose-cut diamonds. The bezel repeats the blue and white around a gilt engine-turned dial with Breguet Arabic numerals and blued steel Breguet hands, the open-ring pattern the house itself invented. Everything about it was made to be worn against dark fabric on a long chain, and the chain is still here: the original sautoir of slender blue enamel batons spaced with seed pearls, closed by a diamond-set clasp. Chains of this kind are nearly always lost or separated over a century; a matching original changes what the piece is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a Breguet of the Brown era, made in Paris and sold from the maison's salon at 2 rue Édouard VII in the spring of 1914. The house's registers record the sale, and the watch's return for service nine years later; the entry, confirmed in writing by Breguet, is set out in The Archive below. What the object adds to the paperwork is condition: the enamel still bright with only a few tiny chips, the rosette secure, the original crystal in place, the chain showing only light wear to a few links.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor all its jewellery, it is a proper watch. The keyless bar movement winds from the crown, sets by drawing it out, and runs correctly: a full lever-escapement mechanism folded into a case not much bigger than a coat button.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePieces like this belong to a particular Paris, the last spring before the First World War, when a watch could be commissioned as a jewel and entered in a ledger by hand. This one has kept its enamel, its diamonds, its chain and its paper trail together for more than a century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the register entry is set out in The Archive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Breguet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54429829103955,"sku":"PW-0088","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/breguet-18ct-solid-gold-with-royal-blue-guilloch-and-white-enamel-pocket-watch-1_Hero_96893213-8e24-4964-b0fb-560d35e622f5.jpg?v=1785287033"},{"product_id":"bovet-fleurier-chinese-market-pocket-watch-sterling-silver-c-1850","title":"Bovet Fleurier Chinese Market Pocket Watch, Sterling Silver, c.1850","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe maker whose name became the word for watch in southern China. A sterling silver Bovet Fleurier built for the Canton trade, complete with its original Chinese shichen dial, and still running today.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1822, Édouard Bovet stepped ashore at Canton with watches to sell, and within a generation his family name had become the everyday Cantonese word for the object itself. The Bovets built the China trade from Fleurier, ran it for four decades, and lost it in the 1860s to the counterfeiting their success invited. This watch was made in the middle of that story, most likely in the 1850s, and it left the Val-de-Travers with one destination in mind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial says so at a glance: two systems share one enamel face, the twelve double-hour characters of the Chinese day around the outside, Western Roman numerals inside them, and the quarter divisions dotted between, read by three blued steel hands, the slender centre seconds sweeping the whole dial in the Chinese-market manner. It is clean, with no chips or hairlines, and behind the original glass it has survived nearly two centuries of use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOpen the back and the second audience appears. Chinese-market watches were sold as much on their movements as their dials, and this one is fire-gilt, its bridges covered edge to edge in cut decoration, its ruby jewels seated in screwed gold chatons: a mechanism made to be shown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case is sterling silver, 55mm, its lion passant mark worn but legible, carrying the handling marks of a long working life without dents or repairs. Winding is by key through the back, with separate arbors for the spring and the hands, and it winds, sets and runs, keeping time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWatches like this crossed the world under sail. This one still has everything it crossed with: its dial, its engraving, its silver and its mechanism, working.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the double-time dial and the retailer's cartouche are set out in The Dial.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bovet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54429834641747,"sku":"PW-0112","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/bovet-sterling-silver-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1785286598"},{"product_id":"solid-onyx-dress-watch-diamond-set-caseback-c-1925","title":"Solid Onyx Dress Watch, Diamond-Set Caseback, c.1925","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA disc of solid black onyx with a full one-carat old-cut diamond set into its back and Cartier's name across a silvered dial. Art Deco dress watchmaking at its most confident, and one of the rarest forms Cartier ever gave a pocket watch.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is a disc of solid black onyx, 48.2mm across, polished to a deep even shine, hung from a triangular platinum bow with a fluted crown seated between its prongs. Against that black ground Cartier set everything that matters: a ring of gold Roman numerals on black enamel, a silvered guilloché centre signed Cartier, blued steel Breguet hands, and, in the middle of the caseback, a single old-cut diamond of a full carat that catches the light every time the watch is turned over. It tells the time and does nothing else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnyx gives the watch its character and its rarity at once: unforgiving to work when the case was made, and easy to chip in any year since. This example has kept its edges and its shine, the surfaces clean, the stone whole, with only the light surface marks of age to the back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLook closely and the detailing is late Cartier at its most exact: beaded gold tracks framing the chapter ring, small gold florets at the hours, Arabic minute numerals in the outer ring, the deep blue of the hands floating over the pale silver centre. Nothing is loud, and everything is deliberate. Between the black stone, the white metal and the single white diamond, the watch reads as jewellery first and mechanism second, which is exactly how Cartier meant it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt winds through the fluted crown, sets cleanly and runs as it should, and it keeps the small thing that usually vanishes first: its original red Cartier pouch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; Cartier's maker of record is set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cartier","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54464700547411,"sku":"PW-0114","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/cartier-solid-onyx-case-platinum-bow-gold-numerals-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1785657262"},{"product_id":"white-enamel-breguet-dial-in-solid-18ct-gold-c-1913","title":"White Enamel Breguet Dial in Solid 18ct Gold, c.1913","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA genuine Vacheron \u0026amp; Constantin in solid 18ct gold, triple-signed and in perfect running order. White enamel dial, Breguet numerals, c.1913.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA full-size Belle Époque Vacheron \u0026amp; Constantin: 48.9mm of solid 18ct yellow gold, 78.7 grams of watch, made in Geneva around 1913 and sold new by J. Neubauer of Verviers, a jeweller in the prosperous Belgian textile town, in the last years before the First World War. The retailer's name is still engraved inside, next to the maker's; between the two of them, the watch carries both its maker and the shop counter it first crossed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is the heart of it. White enamel with black Breguet-style Arabic numerals and a sub-seconds register at six, it is clean and bright with no chips and no hairline cracks. Enamel of this age has usually collected damage somewhere along the way; this one has come through more than a century whole, under slim gold baton hands.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case matches it: bright polish, crisp bezel and edges, the caseback and inner cuvette both closing with a firm, precise snap. Behind them the frosted gilt keyless lever movement winds smoothly, sets cleanly and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWeight is part of the pleasure of this watch. At nearly 79 grams it announces the metal every time it is picked up: a full-size dress watch from the age when Geneva's oldest house made them without economy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the three signatures and the retailer's mark are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vacheron \u0026amp; Constantin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54467171385683,"sku":"PW-0117","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/vacheron-constantin-18k-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1785676557"},{"product_id":"full-hunter-in-18ct-gold-champagne-dial-boxed-1976","title":"Full Hunter in 18ct Gold, Champagne Dial, Boxed, 1976","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSolid 18ct gold from the maker the trade calls the watchmaker's watchmaker, still in the box it left the shop in. A name and a date sit engraved inside the case.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy 1976 nobody needed a pocket watch, which is exactly what makes this one interesting: it was chosen. A full hunter in solid 18ct gold from Jaeger-LeCoultre, bought as a gift and engraved inside the case, à Alain, le 7 Août 1976, at a time when a pocket watch was a deliberate piece of formality rather than a necessity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case rewards the choice. The lid springs open on its button and closes flush with a clean snap, satin-brushed outside and mirror-polished within, and beneath the back sits a second extravagance: a dust cover in solid 18ct gold, engine-turned and signed. Gold inside as well as out is why the watch weighs 48.5 grams at only 41.9mm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe champagne dial is finished with a fine vertical satin grain that moves with the light, crisp black Roman numerals around a plain minute track, slim blackened lance hands, and the JL badge above the full signature beneath twelve: mid-1970s Geneva dress style at its most restrained. The 17-jewel manual movement is clean, bright and running well; the crown and stem have been refitted, and the watch winds and sets as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFifty years on it still keeps its original presentation box, the accessory that almost always disappears first. A dated inscription, its own box and a case gold through and through make it one of the most complete late pocket watches in the collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the inscription and box are set out in The Inscription.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jaeger-LeCoultre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54467363504467,"sku":"PW-0120","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/jaeger-lecoultre-18ct-gold-pocket-watch-10_hero.jpg?v=1785678685"},{"product_id":"bark-finish-brooch-watch-applied-calatrava-cross-c-1970","title":"Bark-Finish Brooch Watch, Applied Calatrava Cross, c.1970","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Patek Philippe you wear on the lapel, not the wrist. Square white gold with the Calatrava cross set into its flank and the honest patina of half a century.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePatek Philippe rarely made a watch this small. This is one of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA square pendant watch in white gold, small enough to sit in the palm of your hand, built in the manner Patek reserved for its dress and jewellery pieces at the turn of the 1970s. The case is worked in the vertical bark texture, écorce, that the maison used across this family of watches, and along one flank sits the applied yellow gold Calatrava cross, Patek's own emblem, raised in relief rather than printed. The winding crown is fluted yellow gold. White gold body, yellow gold detail: a two-tone language that belongs entirely to its moment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe look is pure late-1960s and early-1970s Geneva: architectural, textured, restrained. The square case and the bark finish were a deliberate move away from the polished round dress watch, and Patek executed it with the same care it gave everything else. Held in the hand it feels dense and precise, the edges crisp, the finish deep rather than shiny.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is the quiet heart of the piece. Cream and silvered, signed PATEK PHILIPPE GENEVE beneath an applied gold 12, with applied baton markers and two hands. Time only. Age has settled into it exactly as it should: a soft, even patina across the surface and a gentle darkening to the batons, the kind of honest ageing that no restoration could reproduce and no collector would want removed. It reads as a watch that was kept and worn, not stripped back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it runs. It winds and sets correctly and keeps time, which for a piece this small and this old is not something to take for granted. The crystal is clean and the crown firm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brooch fitting on the reverse is an aftermarket addition: the watch was originally a pendant or small dress form, and the pin was soldered on later. It is neatly executed and fully functional, turning the watch into something that can be pinned to a lapel, a collar or a coat, but it is not factory-original and is disclosed here as such.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePatek Philippe is the most collected name in watchmaking, and most of that attention falls on the wristwatches. Far fewer people ever handle a Patek in this form. A miniature pendant watch asks to be worn differently and noticed differently, where the bark finish catches the light and the little gold cross does the talking. It is discreet and unmistakable at the same time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a piece for someone who already knows what the name means and wants it in a shape almost nobody else has. It is ready to wear as it is, and it carries its history openly, in the dial, in the finish and in the cross on its side.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery watch in The Estate Collection is researched, described honestly and photographed as it truly is.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54467632169299,"sku":"PW-0119","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-18ct-white-gold-with-yellow-gold-accents-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1785679291"},{"product_id":"18ct-gold-lepine-with-a-hand-engraved-cipher-back-c-1895","title":"N° 2961, 18ct Gold Lépine with a Hand-Engraved Cipher Back, c.1895","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA solid 18ct gold Breguet Lépine from the maison's Paris workshop. Pristine white enamel dial, blued pomme hands, and a hand-engraved cipher back.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn open-face Lépine of 49.2mm in solid 18ct gold, made for Breguet's Paris workshop at the close of the nineteenth century, and kept the way watches almost never are. The white enamel dial is entirely without hairlines, chips or spotting, signed Breguet 2961 beneath twelve, with painted Roman hours, an outer Arabic minute track, sub-seconds at six and the maison's own hollow-tipped pomme hands in flame-blued steel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back is where a previous owner made the watch his own. On a ground of tightly cut guilloché, a scrolling foliate cartouche frames a large entwined cipher, cut by hand in relief. Engraving like this only exists on watches that were carried, and carried proudly; it is the opposite of an anonymous case, and it has worn barely at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOpen the covers and the quality announces itself quietly: the front lid, back cover and inner cuvette all close with the crisp, positive click of a case never forced or repaired. The movement behind them is a gilt-frosted keyless lever finished to the standard the house set for itself, with fifteen ruby jewels visible in the train and mirror-polished bridge work. It winds smoothly on the original reeded gold crown, sets cleanly and runs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLate-nineteenth-century Breguets rarely come to market at all, and when they do it is usually with time's compromises: a repaired case, a chipped dial, a movement waiting on a service. This one arrives without them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the matching numbers are set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Breguet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54467858301267,"sku":"PW-0115","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/breguet-18ct-gold-pocket-watch-27_hero.jpg?v=1785680042"},{"product_id":"chronometre-royal-18ct-gold-with-a-sunburst-caseback-c-1913","title":"Chronomètre Royal, 18ct Gold with a Sunburst Caseback, c.1913","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eVacheron \u0026amp; Constantin's observatory-grade precision watch: a large Chronomètre Royal in solid 18ct gold, entirely original, its caseback never once engraved.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA Chronomètre Royal was Vacheron's precision instrument rather than its jewellery, and everything about this one says so. It is a large watch, 56.4mm in solid 18ct gold, the size the period trade sold as a Goliath, with real weight in the hand. Yet the design is quiet: a plain polished bezel around the dial, and all of the case's decoration saved for the back, a single field of engine-turned sunburst radiating from an oval cartouche at its lower edge. That cartouche was put there for a monogram, and in more than a hundred years nobody ever cut one into it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe white enamel dial is deep and glassy, with black Roman numerals, a fine outer minute track and subsidiary seconds at six, the maker's signature in small black script across the centre. It is free of hairlines, chips and restoration; enamel of this age rarely comes through unmarked, and this one has. Gold poire hands with a matching gilt seconds hand, original to the watch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside, the gilded movement sits beneath a solid gold cuvette, hand-engraved with the maker's name, so that dial, movement and cover all speak with one voice. Everything the watch left Geneva with is still here, matching and unrestored: nothing swapped, nothing polished away, nothing added in the century between. It winds, sets and runs as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFew of the large gold examples survive with the enamel whole and every signature in place, and they are the ones that rarely come to market intact. This one has been kept, plainly and well, the entire time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the three signatures are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vacheron \u0026 Constantin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54589116318035,"sku":"PW-0123","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/vacheron-constantin-18ct-solid-gold-with-signed-18ct-gold-cuvette-pocket-watch-6_hero_e64cb598-51eb-433e-b27c-da10d8929fe8.jpg?v=1786743313"},{"product_id":"column-wheel-chronograph-tachymetre-and-telemetre-c-1940","title":"Column-Wheel Chronograph, Tachymetre and Telemetre, c.1940","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUlysse Nardin is one of the most decorated names in precision watchmaking, and here is its chronograph in miniature: a patented column-wheel movement beneath a silvered dial layered with tachymetre and telemetre scales, still running and honestly worn.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost serious chronographs of this era were grand objects in gold, sized for the saloon rather than the field. This one is different: 41.2mm, bright chromed metal, a snap back, a watch made to be carried, used and read at speed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe silvered dial does the work of three instruments at once. A thirty-minute recorder sits at twelve, running seconds at six, and around the edge run two printed scales, a blue tachymetre on Base 1000 and a red telemetre calibrated in kilometres, timed against blued leaf hands over bold Arabic numerals. Signed Ulysse Nardin, Le Locle \u0026amp; Genève, the printing is crisp and complete; the silver is toned and flecked with scattered dark spotting, heaviest over the two registers, the honest surface of an instrument that was carried and used rather than kept in a drawer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside the back are the stamps of its journey: the Ulysse Nardin anchor, the country mark Suiza, and the code NOA, used exclusively on Ulysse Nardin pieces imported to the United States. A small stamp, and a documented transatlantic history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUlysse Nardin chronographs mostly survive in gold, larger and grander. A compact example in a working everyday case, its multi-scale dial intact and its chronograph healthy, is a much less common thing. The chronograph starts, stops and returns to zero with a clean, positive action, the minute recorder falling into line; the watch winds and sets positively, runs well, and the crystal is without a mark.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe movement, the marks and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the patent stamp and numbers are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ulysse Nardin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591887507795,"sku":"PW-0124","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/ulysse-nardin-chromed-base-metal-non-precious-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1786752828"},{"product_id":"geneva-sealed-18ct-gold-adjusted-to-five-positions-c-1960","title":"Geneva-Sealed 18ct Gold, Adjusted to Five Positions, c.1960","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Patek Philippe open face in 18ct yellow gold with the Geneva Seal: caliber 17-140 confirmed on the movement plate, regulated to the fullest specification the house offered, its silvered dial in the clean mid-century style of the Calatrava era.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome Patek Philippe pocket watches were made as spectacle. This one was made simply to be correct: an open face of 42.5mm in 18ct yellow gold, the discreet format of the mid-century, its edges still sharp. In the hand it is compact and dense, smaller than the railway-grade open faces of the earlier generation but heavier than it looks, the way solid gold at this scale always is.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is silvered metal in the design language Patek Philippe used across its mid-century production: applied 18ct gold faceted lance indexes in place of numerals, matching gold dauphine hands, a minute track of small dots, and a recessed subsidiary seconds register at six. It is the restrained look of the Calatrava wristwatches of the period, applied to a pocket watch. The surface is even and clean, the printing sharp, and the indexes still catch the light on their facets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA watch like this was bought by someone who understood exactly what they were paying for: not size, not decoration, but regulation and finish. Sixty or seventy years later that is still the whole point of it, and it has barely aged in the keeping.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe seal, the marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the reference and archive record are set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591949996371,"sku":"PW-0126","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-18ct-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1786753673"},{"product_id":"open-face-in-stainless-steel-guilloche-sub-seconds-c-1933","title":"Open Face in Stainless Steel, Guilloché Sub-Seconds, c.1933","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Vacheron \u0026amp; Constantin in stainless steel from 1933, at a time when the house made almost everything in gold or silver. Two-tone sector dial, rose gold figures, rose gold hands. Running well.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1933 was the height of the Art Deco decade, and this watch is a thoroughly 1933 object. Steel, not silver: harder, colder, brighter, the material of aircraft and architecture rather than of the jewellery trade. Choosing it for a watch from Geneva's oldest house was a modernist statement, and the piece wears it plainly, a 47mm open face with a clean line and no ornament anywhere on the outside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe face makes the argument. It is a two-tone sector dial, a matte cream centre inside a silvered outer track, the layout the modernist thirties made its own. The hour markings alternate, rose gold Arabic figures at the even hours and slim rose gold batons between them, matched by the rose gold hands and even the winding crown, one warm note repeated against the white and the steel. The sub-seconds at six carries a raised centre disc with a soft sunray finish. Under close light the surface shows the light, even mottling of ninety years, with figures and printing clear throughout; nothing has been restored.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 63.9 grams the watch is substantial in the hand, and the steel has aged the way the material promises to: no tarnish, no creeping patina, the original finish still present with its lustre. The crown winds and sets cleanly, the snap back opens without resistance, and it runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNinety years later, the tension this watch was born into, between tradition and modernity, between the oldest house in Geneva and the newest material in the workshop, reads as clearly as it did in 1933. It has simply been kept, in good working order, all this time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the three signatures and serials are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vacheron \u0026 Constantin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591950061907,"sku":"PW-0128","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/vacheron-constantin-stainless-steel-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1786755849"},{"product_id":"18ct-gold-open-face-triple-signed-throughout-c-1945","title":"18ct Gold Open Face, Triple-Signed Throughout, c.1945","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGeneva's oldest great house, signed three times over on the dial, the movement and the case back: an 18k gold Vacheron \u0026amp; Constantin of 1945 with a clean champagne dial, running well.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis watch dates to around 1945, the years just after the Second World War, when demand for fine Swiss dress watches was recovering across Europe and America and Vacheron was making pieces like this one: quiet, correct, and built to be kept. At 46.9mm in solid 18k gold it sits at the larger end of the mid-century gentleman's watch, substantial in the hand, with a plain polished case and nothing on the outside to announce itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe champagne lacquered dial uses the mixed layout the house favoured in this period: Arabic numerals at the quarters and faceted dart markers between them, applied in white metal so they read cool against the warm ground, with slim gold baton hands and a sub-seconds register at six. The surface is clean throughout, with no lifting at the chapter ring, and the hands are original.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best detail is out of sight. Inside the caseback the gold is engine-turned in overlapping circles, a fish-scale pattern still sharp and unmarked, a finish spent on a surface only the owner ever sees. It is the kind of decision that tells you how the watch was made: as a complete, unified object, signed by the maker wherever a signature could go, not assembled from parts and named on the dial alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEighty years on, it has come through with the case true, the dial clean and the movement running. It winds smoothly, sets without resistance and runs well. No box or papers accompany it, which is usual for a watch of this age; the watch itself is in unusually good order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the three signatures are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vacheron \u0026 Constantin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591950094675,"sku":"PW-0125","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/vacheron-constantin-18k-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero_a7600270-d6c4-49e5-926f-b5b204e5102d.jpg?v=1786755125"},{"product_id":"open-face-in-18ct-gold-full-floral-engraving-c-1888-1890","title":"Open Face in 18ct Gold, Hand-Engraved Floral Case, c.1888-1890","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA triple-signed Patek Philippe from the heart of the Belle Epoque: dial, movement, and factory-engraved cuvette all carry the house signature and serial 82758. The 18ct gold case back is hand-engraved with a floral spray on a matted ground, the white enamel dial is bright and original, and it runs well.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the late 1880s, a Patek Philippe like this was the finest watch a man could commission, and someone commissioned this one with the case as the centrepiece. The back is hand-engraved with a spray of five-petalled blossoms and leaves inside a plain polished border: each flower outlined and shaded with the graver, the ground between them cut to a fine cross-hatched matt so the bright petals stand out against it. Work at this level was ordered and paid for, and meant to be noticed; that it survives crisp is the notable part, because engraving on gold this soft usually softens over a century of pockets and palms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rest of the watch keeps pace. The white enamel dial is original and unrestored, slim black Roman numerals inside a railway minute track numbered every five minutes, the early PATEK, PHILIPPE \u0026amp; Co signature above the centre. The hands are gold lozenge pattern, the open diamond form the house used through the late nineteenth century, with a blued steel hand in the sub-seconds at six. Under magnification a single fine hairline runs from the centre arbor down to the sub-seconds rim; it is stable, hard to find at arm's length, and the only mark on an otherwise bright, glassy surface. At 48.7mm it has the full presence of a Victorian gentleman's watch, and the pendant push-piece and hinge still work with the clean action of a well-kept case.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWatches like this were bought once and kept for life, and this one reads like it was: used, cared for, never restored because it never needed to be. It winds, sets and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the three signatures and the factory-engraved cuvette are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591950127443,"sku":"PW-0131","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-18ct-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_Hero_4b98aef9-4d44-4417-a6e9-c8d056099557.jpg?v=1787742075"},{"product_id":"open-face-in-18ct-two-tone-gold-brock-company-c-1931","title":"Open Face in 18ct Two-Tone Gold, Brock \u0026 Company, c.1931","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAn 18ct two-tone Patek Philippe, white gold body set in a yellow gold bezel ring, with the Brock and Company Los Angeles signature engraved on the movement bridge. The original suede pouch and a period two-tone chain are included.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case is the first uncommon thing: 18ct gold in two colours, the body in white gold, the bezel ring in yellow, a configuration Patek Philippe produced sparingly around 1931 and one that survives even more rarely with the contrast fully preserved. The brushed satin surfaces carry it well, and at 43.7mm the watch sits in the hand at exactly the scale the Art Deco years favoured: neither grand nor slight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second uncommon thing is engraved on the movement bridge: Brock and Company. George Brock opened his jewellery house in Los Angeles in 1903, and over six decades it became the city's foremost jeweller, the address where the film industry bought its serious pieces and an authorised Patek Philippe retailer trusted to put its own name beside Geneva's. The shop closed in 1964, which makes Brock-signed Patek movements a closed chapter: the ones that exist are all there will ever be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe silvered dial is original and carries more detail than a first glance suggests. The numerals are stylised Breguet figures in the Art Deco cut, and each has aged to its own colour, copper on the eight, plum on the seven, violet on the three, the mottled toning that only develops when gilt is never touched. The hands are the matching Breguet pattern with the open ring near the tip, the minute track is a ring of raised pearl dots, and the sub-seconds register at six has an engine-turned centre. The signature reads Geneva, Switzerland in English rather than Genève, the export form for the American market, which fits the Brock and Company bridge exactly. Nothing has been repainted or restored. It winds, sets and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the retailer signature, the serials and the accompanying pouch and chain are recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591950160211,"sku":"PW-0132","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-18k-two-tone-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero_6438dec5-a923-46d7-8c0a-f6f5126e1581.jpg?v=1787158793"},{"product_id":"open-face-in-18ct-gold-white-enamel-arabic-dial-c-1937","title":"Open Face in 18ct Gold, Henri Stern Import, c.1937","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA 1937 Patek Philippe in 18-carat gold, its original enamel dial carrying Breguet numerals that have each toned to their own colour, and a PXP stamp on the caseback identifying it as an official Henri Stern Watch Agency import for the US market.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy the late 1930s, Patek Philippe had spent nearly a century refining what it meant to make a pocket watch correctly, and the firms competing at the top were competing on quality alone. This watch is that idea in the metal: an open face of 43.9mm in 18 carat gold, the size the Swiss trade simply called a normal pocket watch, 54.1 grams of it, made around 1937 with the maker's full standard applied to a watch that has no complications to hide behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dial is original white enamel with a subsidiary seconds register at six and a minute track of small raised enamel dots. The numerals are Breguet style Arabic figures, the elongated, flourished form Abraham-Louis Breguet introduced in the 1780s, and the gold hands match them, each drawn to a fine point with an open ring near the tip. The gilt of the numerals has oxidised over ninety years, and not evenly: each figure has taken its own colour, copper on the three, sea green on the four, a faint violet sheen on the nine. That spread of colour only happens when gilt is left completely alone for decades, and it cannot be copied onto a restored dial. Nothing here has been repainted or replaced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe watch crossed the Atlantic through Patek Philippe's official American channel, the Henri Stern Watch Agency, and the stamp recording that journey is still on the caseback. The crystal is clear, the crown winds and sets correctly, and the movement runs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the PXP import stamp and the archive record are set out in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591950192979,"sku":"PW-0133","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-18k-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1787310998"},{"product_id":"prince-imperial-31-victoires-de-haute-precision-c-1930","title":"Prince Imperial, 31 Victoires de Haute Precision, c.1930","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Rolex Prince Imperial in stainless steel, its caseback factory-engraved 31 Victoires de Haute Précision, Genève Suisse: the observatory record Rolex had built by the time it was made. The salmon two-zone dial is clean, original and exceptional.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Prince is one of the defining objects of Art Deco watchmaking, and this is the form it takes in the metal: a two-zone face, the main chapter ring above, the subsidiary seconds set apart below, the whole dial a study in controlled proportion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is the exceptional thing about this example. The salmon and champagne lacquer is clean and deep, the guilloché texture of the seconds register intact, the Roman numerals at twelve, three and nine sharp between their baton markers, the blued steel hands original and straight. Prince dials are fragile objects that have had ninety years to go wrong, to spot, to fade, to be repainted or replaced, and this one did none of it. What you see is how it left the factory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen the caseback: factory-engraved with the record the Prince line was sold on. Thirty-one precision victories at the Geneva Observatory, the tally Rolex had accumulated across its competition campaigns, cut into the steel of the watch itself rather than printed on a certificate that could be lost.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSteel cases are the smaller part of surviving Prince production; most were gold. The watch winds, sets and runs correctly, and it comes with its Albert curb-link chain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the observatory engraving is recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rolex","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54591950225747,"sku":"PW-0130","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/rolex-stainless-steel-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1786758782"},{"product_id":"open-face-in-platinum-calibre-sapphire-border-geneva-seal-c-1929","title":"Open Face in Platinum, Calibré Sapphire Border, Geneva Seal, c.1929","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrom the workshops of Niton, Geneva craftsmen whose movements were commissioned by Patek Philippe and Cartier, a dress watch in platinum with calibré sapphires set around the full circumference of the case, the bow, and the crown tip. The movement carries the Poinçon de Genève.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong the fine Geneva workshops of the 1920s, Niton was founded in 1919 by craftsmen trained at Vacheron Constantin, and it made movements for the names that mattered: Patek Philippe commissioned from the house, as did Cartier and Van Cleef and Arpels. Through the 1920s nearly three quarters of everything Niton made earned the Geneva Seal. This movement carries it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe case is platinum, plain polished, 41mm across, and the setting is what sets the watch apart: a border of deep blue calibré-cut sapphires runs the full circumference of the case middle, continues over the bow, and finishes in a single cabochon on the tip of the crown. For all of that, it is a quiet object. The richness is held inside a strict Art Deco line, a fully gem-set watch that makes no effort to announce itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the white enamel dial, its bold Breguet numerals read by blued steel Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip, in place of the maker's name stands the retailer's: Walser, Wald y Cia, Florida 664, Buenos Aires. Walser were the most distinguished watch house in South America between the wars and Patek Philippe's official Argentine representatives, a retailer whose Swiss commissions were built to their own specification. That it is their name on the dial, and not Niton's, says what kind of piece this was: ordered, not off the shelf, for a client who knew the difference.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA century is a long time for a gem-set watch to stay whole. Work of this kind tends to be taken apart over the years: stones reset, crowns lost, movements moved into other cases. This one is complete. Every sapphire is present, the dial and the sapphire-tipped crown are original, and the movement, numbered 9942, sits in the Geneva-made case it left the workshop in, with the seal of the Canton of Geneva on the plate to say so. It winds, sets and runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the Buenos Aires retailer signature is recorded in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Niton","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54592374899027,"sku":"PW-0134","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/niton-platinum-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1786759422"},{"product_id":"18ct-gold-column-wheel-chronograph-named-january-1913","title":"18ct Gold Column Wheel Chronograph, Named, January 1913","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA column wheel chronograph by Patek, Philippe \u0026amp; Cie in 18 carat gold, inscribed and presented to a named recipient on the 9th of January 1913. Over a century later, every function works precisely: seconds, chronograph and 30-minute register.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA chronograph of 49.1mm in 18 carat yellow gold, made by Patek, Philippe \u0026amp; Cie in the years around 1906 to 1909, and finished as a gift. Inside the case back, in period script, is a name and a date: P. Grandvarlet, 9 Janvier 1913.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSomebody chose this watch carefully. It was commissioned from the finest maker in Geneva while the firm still wore its older identity, the comma in the name, Genève in the old spelling on the dial, and it was not a casual decision: a column wheel chronograph in a full gold case was among the most serious watches money could buy in 1913. Who Grandvarlet was, and what the occasion was, the watch does not say. It has simply been kept well, for a very long time, by people who understood what it was.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe white enamel dial is the original, with Breguet Arabic numerals, running seconds at six and the thirty-minute recorder at twelve, under the ornate gold scrolled hands Patek fitted to movements of this grade. It is intact everywhere: no chips, no hairlines, no restoration. The case is generous even for its era, a proper hand-filling watch, its hinged back opening cleanly.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd it still does everything it was built to do. It winds, sets and runs; the chronograph starts, stops and returns to zero with the recorder advancing as it should, a hundred and ten years on and never fussed over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt comes without box or papers. It comes instead with what it has always carried: a name, a date, and a movement that still keeps time. The marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the inscription is shown in The Record.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54592617939283,"sku":"PW-0129","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-cie-gen-ve-18ct-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1786759974"},{"product_id":"self-winding-perpetuelle-platinum-weight-c-1930","title":"Self-Winding Perpétuelle, Platinum Weight, c.1930","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe self-winding watch Breguet invented in the 1780s, built again by the house itself a century and a half later. An 18ct gold Perpétuelle with a platinum winding weight, its running reserve read off the dial.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn open-face watch in 18ct gold, 48.34mm across and 91.1 grams in the hand, engine-turned across the bezel, the band and the hinged back that lifts to the movement, the back worked around a plain polished cartouche, with the pendant and bow left in polished gold. It is a Perpétuelle, a watch that winds itself from the motion of being carried, and that word is the whole story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSelf-winding was Abraham-Louis Breguet's founding trick, the invention that made his name in Paris in the 1780s, and for most of a century afterwards the house let it rest. Then, in 1921, Sir David Salomons published his monograph on Breguet and reminded the world, and the firm itself, of what the old man had actually done. In the years that followed, the house answered with a small run of new Perpétuelles built in honour of its own beginning, and this is one of them: No. 2176, made around 1930, bracketed in the series by No. 1648 of 1928 and No. 2492 of 1932. The movements for the run came from Les Fils de V. Piguet in the Vallée de Joux, then trusted with the most demanding complicated work in Switzerland.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe silvered dial is guilloché throughout, worked in a tighter weave at the centre than the case carries, with a plain satin band holding the Roman hours and a beaded minute track just inside it. Hours and minutes sit a little high of centre, read by blued steel hands in the moon-tipped Breguet pattern, and beneath them a separately pivoted hand sweeps an arc graduated to fifty, showing how much running reserve the motion of the day has stored. A subsidiary seconds turns in its own guilloché ring at six.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the other side of the hinged back, the self-winding weight rides on its own pivot at the top of the movement, and it is cut in platinum: the densest metal for the job, on a watch whose whole purpose is that weight's quiet travel. It winds and sets correctly from the gold pendant crown, and it runs well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe house's own registers know this watch: sold new on the 21st of February 1933 to a Monsieur Lenoir, for 10,000 francs. It has come through the ninety years since complete, matching and original, the number struck on caseback, cuvette and movement, and the caseback's central cartouche, the panel left for an owner's monogram, never engraved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the register entry, confirmed by the house, is set out in The Archive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Breguet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54616485462355,"sku":"PW-0140","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/breguet-18ct-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero_bdbd71ed-a2e9-407e-8110-12060fd509dc.jpg?v=1787071824"},{"product_id":"five-sided-tombstone-case-in-18ct-gold-touchon-extra-c-1922","title":"Five-Sided 'Tombstone' Case in 18ct Gold, Touchon Extra, c.1922","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA five-sided Art Deco dress watch in solid 18ct gold, built at the top of the American trade: the case by Wittnauer of New York, the dial signed by Bailey, Banks \u0026amp; Biddle of Philadelphia, and the movement by Touchon of Geneva, finished to the firm's highest grade.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the early 1920s the pocket watch had long settled into its shape. Art Deco geometry was running through everything else on the jeweller's counter, wristwatches, cigarette cases, vanity cases, but the watch that went into a waistcoat pocket stayed a circle. This one did not. The case is cut with five straight sides, the outline the period trade called a tombstone, taller than it is wide, with the gold bow passing straight through the top edge rather than hanging from a round pendant. There is no ornament beyond the geometry itself: a plain polished bezel, flat polished gold, and edges that still meet crisply a century on. Fancy-form cases were made in small numbers, usually to a jeweller's order, and few were made in solid 18ct gold. On this watch the shape is the point, and everything else is built to serve it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial holds the same discipline. It is silvered with a fine grained finish that shifts in raking light, and the numerals are applied gold Arabics in the tall, narrow style of the decade, drawn out to follow the case rather than fight it. A railroad minute track follows the five-sided outline inside them, and at six sits a sub-seconds register that is itself five-sided, the case shape echoed in miniature. Nothing on the front is printed where it could be built: the numerals stand proud of the silver in solid gold, and the hands are gold too, each pierced with an open lozenge near the tip. The crown is fluted gold, small and correct for a dress watch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back is a plain polished field with a single engraving at its centre: three interlaced letters in an angular Art Deco hand, cut in the same straight-edged style as the case, so the initials read as part of the design rather than an afterthought. They have not been identified.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt weighs 56.2 grams, most of it gold, and carries that weight in a case sized for a waistcoat pocket. The flat surfaces catch light differently from a round case, in planes rather than a single curve, and that is the pleasure of the form: a century old, and still an unusual thing to take out of a pocket.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bailey Banks \u0026 Biddle Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54797530661203,"sku":"PW-0127","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/bailey-banks-biddle-co-18k-solid-gold-pocket-watch-21_403dfde7-84f4-487e-80c0-768be1a90f3f.jpg?v=1788110880"},{"product_id":"reference-600-in-18ct-gold-triple-signed-c-1950","title":"Reference 600 in 18ct Gold, Triple-Signed, c.1950","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Patek Philippe reference 600 in solid 18ct gold, signed three times over: on the dial, across the movement and inside the case. A pure open-face design carrying the full finishing of the firm's most complicated work.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy around 1950 the reference 600 had reached its most refined form: an open-face watch in solid gold whose every element, from the proportions of the case to the balance of the dial, was resolved for both function and elegance, with nothing left to chance. This is one of those, made at the height of the reference's long production and finished throughout to Patek Philippe's full standard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case is solid 18ct gold, 41.55mm, the compact dress size of the reference, with a slim polished bezel and an unbroken back. The back was never engraved. Reference 600s were frequently given as gifts and monogrammed, so an untouched, uncut back on an example that has come through seventy years is genuinely uncommon, and it keeps the lines of the case exactly as they left Geneva. The gold carries only the even, light patina of careful handling and has not been polished.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dial is the heart of it. Silvered and satin-finished, it carries applied gold faceted lance markers, doubled at twelve, slim faceted gold lance hands, a dot minute track, and a subsidiary seconds dial sunk at six with its centre engine-turned in fine circles, the signature set out in fine, restrained printing: Patek Philippe, Genève, beneath twelve. The hands are original to the watch. The dial itself is clean and untouched, without hairlines or restoration of any kind, which on a watch of this age is the rarest and most telling quality of all: it is the difference between a reference 600 that is merely correct and one that is right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBehind the dial the restraint gives way entirely. The caliber 17-140 is a full Patek movement of eighteen jewels, adjusted to five positions and struck with the Geneva seal, finished to a level that owes nothing to the simplicity of the watch's face. It is signed Patek Philippe \u0026amp; Co, Genève across the bridge and individually numbered, and it runs, winds and sets precisely as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat restraint is the whole intention. A watch like this asks to be judged on the things Patek Philippe is judged on: the quality of the gold, the finishing of the movement, and the honesty of an original dial. It answers on all three, signed three times over and original throughout, in the condition that sets one reference 600 apart from another.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Patek Philippe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54797944947027,"sku":"PW-0141","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/patek-philippe-18ct-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1788111292"},{"product_id":"presentation-hunter-in-14ct-gold-cypher-of-carol-i-c-1900","title":"Presentation Hunter in 14ct Gold, Cypher of Carol I, c.1900","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA royal presentation hunter in solid 14ct gold, its lid enamelled with the crowned cypher of King Carol I of Romania, by the Geneva house that held his royal warrant.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe cypher fills the front lid: two opposed C's, interlaced and scrolled, laid in blue enamel within a fine dotted border, beneath the closed crown of Romania with its cap enamelled in red and an orb and cross at the summit. It is the personal mark of Carol I, King of Romania, and that is the point of a piece like this: a sovereign's presentation watch announced its giver, not its owner. The recipient carried the King's own cypher, and the watch did its work every time the lid caught the light.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe case is a full hunter of 48.53mm in solid 14ct gold, 81.7 grams in the hand. Even the gold standard is a trace of the court that ordered it: Carol was born a Hohenzollern, and 14ct was the German goldsmithing standard rather than the Swiss and French preference for 18ct. The back cover is plain polished gold, deliberately left empty, every ornament reserved for the front. The pendant carries a fluted winding crown with the lid release set into it as a small pusher, and inside sits a gold cuvette stamped with the house's name and its own number, 30686.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dial is white enamel without a hairline, chip or repair. Black fancy Arabic numerals in the taste of the years around 1900, small diamond markers at the five minute divisions, and a sunk subsidiary seconds ring above six. The hands are pierced, scrolled Louis XV work in gold, closer to jewellery than to watch furniture, which is fitting from a house that was as much jeweller as watchmaker.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWatches carrying royal cyphers tend to come down hard-used, polished through or with the enamel lost, because recipients wore the honour daily. This one was kept. The enamel of the crown and cypher is complete, the covers close with their original snap, and the movement winds and runs as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the full condition report are set out in the drawers below.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Golay Fils \u0026 Stahl","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54863961096531,"sku":"PW-0145","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/golay-fils-stahl-14k-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero.jpg?v=1788725699"},{"product_id":"gold-and-enamel-verge-with-split-pearl-border-c-1790-1800","title":"Gold and Enamel Verge with Split Pearl Border, c.1790-1800","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA gold and enamel verge from the house of the King's clockmaker, signed Berthoud à Paris. On its back, an offering at the altar of Love, painted in enamel and framed in split pearls.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe scene is the reason this watch exists. On the back, within a raised gold frame, a young woman in a yellow tunic tied with a blue sash stands before a garlanded altar, a basket of flowers on her arm, a lamb on a blue ribbon at her heel and a small child at her side. Flowers are heaped on the altar. One dove sits among them, another hovers above with wings spread, and the two touch beaks. Behind, on the right, is a round colonnaded temple. It is an offering at the altar of Love: the billing doves are the birds of Venus, the round temple is the Temple of Love of the period's gardens, and the girl brings what a shepherdess had to give, flowers and a lamb. The subject was a favourite of Paris print-sellers in the 1770s and 80s, in pastorals after Jean-Baptiste Huet and in the Greek-dressed offerings after Vien, and the enamel painters who worked for the Paris trade drew on those prints freely. The painting is unsigned, as watch-case enamels of this date nearly always are. The painter has set it against a cream enamel ground laid over engine turning, so the sky radiates faintly from behind the figures. Around it runs a border of split pearls, green enamel leaves and dots of translucent blue, complete, and around that a chased band of laurel. The small gold stud at the border's edge is the latch that opens the case.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe front is quieter. A white enamel dial with painted Arabic numerals and blued steel hands, wound with a key through the small aperture at 2, in the French manner. The pendant is a T-bar with a folding bow, and the band of that bow is engraved with digits matching the number inside the watch: case and movement have kept each other's company since the workshop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe movement is a gilt full plate verge, its bridge cock pierced and engraved, with a silvered rosette regulator disc lettered A and R for avance and retard. It is signed in script, Berthoud, A Paris, No. 11711, and it winds, sets and runs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt some point in its French life, after 1838 by the mark it carries, the watch was fitted with a glazed silver gilt outer case, a plain working shell with glass on both sides, so the enamel could be seen without being handled. The gilding on that case is rubbed from use. The enamel it was made to protect is not.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Berthoud, Paris","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54863961620819,"sku":"PW-0146","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/berthoud-paris-gold-back-set-with-a-painted-enamel-scene-within-a-border-of-split-pearls-green-enamel-leaves-and-blue-enamel-dots-silver-gilt-glazed-outer-case-pocket-watch-2_hero.jpg?v=1788606817"},{"product_id":"bell-struck-quarter-repeater-in-later-dutch-silver-c-1710","title":"Bell-Struck Quarter Repeater in Later Dutch Silver, c.1710","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA quarter-repeating verge watch that strikes the hours and quarters on a bell, signed Fromanteel \u0026amp; Clarke, the Anglo-Dutch house descended from the maker of Britain's first pendulum clocks. Arcaded white enamel dial and gilt beetle-and-poker hands, in later Dutch silver.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a repeating watch. Work the slide set into the case band and it strikes the hour on a bell, then the quarters, so the time can be read by ear in the dark. A striking watch was among the most complicated things a maker could attempt in the early eighteenth century, and it is the reason the case band is pierced: the frets let the bell be heard. Few verge watches of the period carry the work. It is large, a full 61mm across, open-faced and wound by key, with no crown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dial is white enamel in the arcaded manner, black Roman hours within a scalloped chapter and an outer ring of Arabic minutes counted in fives, each figure set in a shallow wave. Gilt beetle-and-poker hands sit over it, the hour a chased fleur, the minute a tapering poker, cast and dressed by hand. The enamel carries the hairlines of its age and a small loss beside the centre, set down plainly in the condition report; the black on white still reads at a glance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough the back is the work that matters. A full gilt plate fills the case, and over the balance sits a cock pierced and engraved edge to edge with foliage, a silvered regulator disc numbered beside it. The very edge of the plate is engraved too, a running frieze of birds and scrollwork meant for whoever opened the watch and no one else. The repeat train and its rack sit within, driving the hammer to the bell, which is mounted over the movement and struck on its rim. Across the plate runs the signature, in flowing script, Fromanteel \u0026amp; Clarke: the Anglo-Dutch house that reached back to the maker of Britain's first pendulum clocks and kept a shop in Amsterdam as well as London. An engraved W keeps it company, a workshop hand that left no fuller name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe silver that holds all this is younger than the movement. Its marks are Dutch and of the nineteenth century, so at some point in Holland the old watch was given fresh cases and kept in use, which for an Anglo-Dutch maker is a fitting place to have ended up. That is the honest shape of the piece: an early bell-striking repeater in later Dutch silver, working, whole and together. The marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fromanteel \u0026 Clarke","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54920441266515,"sku":"PW-0143","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/fromanteel-clarke-silver-pocket-watch_hero.jpg?v=1789157517"},{"product_id":"extra-flat-in-18ct-gold-eight-adjustments-c-1925","title":"Extra-Flat in 18ct Gold, Eight Adjustments, c.1925","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA Cartier dress watch of the mid 1920s in 18ct yellow gold, signed by the European Watch \u0026amp; Clock Co. on movement and case alike: Cartier production at its most complete.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCartier built its reputation between the wars on watches that did less, more perfectly. This is one of them: an open face dress watch in 18ct yellow gold, 46.9mm across and remarkably shallow, made around 1925, when the flat gold watch was Cartier's answer for evening wear.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe case is the extra-flat bombe pattern, drawn in one unbroken curve from the polished bezel to the domed back, with no step or ornament to interrupt it. The bow is a plain gold oval, the crown finely fluted, and that is the whole vocabulary of the outside. Cartier left the back plain, and no owner in a hundred years added a monogram: the mirror of gold is as the Paris workshop released it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dial is silvered rather than enamel, the modern choice for the period, with black Roman numerals set inside a railway minute track and the Cartier signature written in script across the centre. There is no seconds hand. The symmetry is the point: nothing moves on this dial but the two blued steel Breguet-style hands.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderneath sits the reason this generation of Cartier is judged by what is inside. The movement was made for Cartier alone by the European Watch \u0026amp; Clock Co. and engraved with the highest grade that company used: eighteen jewels, adjusted eight ways, a specification reserved for watches expected to keep time seriously rather than simply to dress well. The same signature is stamped inside the French gold case, so the piece carries its originality on both halves, case and calibre answering each other.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt 46.9mm it is a large example of the type, with real presence in the hand for something so thin. It winds, sets and runs as it should, and it has kept the crispness that these plain gold cases usually lose first: the stamps inside the back read as sharply as the day they were struck.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe marks, the movement and the condition are set out in the drawers below. Price on request.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cartier","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54927464857939,"sku":"PW-0147","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1080\/3121\/3907\/files\/cartier-18ct-yellow-gold-pocket-watch-1_hero_9c75788c-2a36-4201-8dd6-370ebaade369.jpg?v=1789253145"}],"url":"https:\/\/estatecollection.nl\/collections\/shop-by-maker-prestige-names.oembed","provider":"The Estate Collection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}