A Leroy & Fils single-button chronograph in French 18ct gold, the chronograph worked entirely through the crown, with a pulsometer dial graduated for thirty pulsations.
This chronograph is the house at its most practical: a Valjoux column-wheel calibre, a French gold case, and a dial laid out for a doctor's hand, sold across the avenue de l'Opéra counter in the mid 1930s.
The dial has aged to an even champagne tone with fine foxing across the surface, heavier below the centre. The Breguet-style Arabic numerals are large and black, the outer track is divided to fifths of a second with figures at every five, and the words GRADUE POUR 30 PULSATIONS run around the top edge in capitals. The two registers, thirty minutes at three and running seconds at nine, are snailed in concentric rings that catch the light differently from the flat ground around them. Leroy & Fils sits under twelve, Paris above six. Blued steel leaf hands for the time, a needle-thin blued hand for the chronograph, blued hands in the registers.
- 1The signatureLEROY & FILS printed under the twelve, PARIS above the six.
- 2Pulsometer scaleRuns down the right of the dial, 200 at the top to 40 at the bottom; the chronograph hand reads the pulse against it after thirty beats.
- 3Thirty-minute registerAt three, snailed in concentric rings, with a blued hand.
- 4Running secondsAt nine, snailed to match the register opposite.
The chronograph is controlled from the crown alone: a small flat button set in its centre starts, stops and returns the hand with successive presses, so the caseband carries nothing but the crown. This is the first generation of the wrist chronograph, the single-button pocket chronograph brought down to the wrist, and the pulsometer scale makes it the physician's version. Start on a heartbeat, stop on the thirtieth, and the long blued chronograph hand points to the pulse rate on the scale that runs down the right of the dial, 200 at the top to 40 at the bottom.
The watch is small by later standards, 32.2mm across and 38.7mm lug to lug, and the case makes the most of it: a plain round band, a tall raised bezel stepped back from a second ring beneath it, and short hooked lugs that turn down to the strap. Seen from the side the bezel stands well proud of the band and the domed crystal rises again above that, so the dial sits deep in a frame of gold. The back is flat and plain, stamped with the shop's name and address and engraved with an early owner's monogram in modernist capitals, i.u.
The dial is signed Leroy & Fils, Paris, and the caseback is stamped Leroy & Fils, 35 Av. Opéra, with the case number 156548. Two other avenue de l'Opéra wrist chronographs are recorded with the numbers 156873 and 158575, catalogued c.1935 and 1940s, which places this case around 1935. The band beside the crown and the inside of the back each carry the French eagle's head for 18ct gold, and the back carries the casemaker's lozenge. The movement is the Valjoux 13-ligne VZ, identified against documented examples cased by Audemars Piguet in 1933 and 1939.
Beneath the dial is the Valjoux 13-ligne VZ, the column-wheel single-button calibre of the 1930s, the same ebauche Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe built their crown-button chronographs on in these years. Here it is finished in nickel with Geneva stripes across the bridges, polished steel chronograph levers and a cut bimetallic compensation balance under a narrow cock. The reference, 857, is stamped into the plate beside the balance. It runs well and the chronograph does what it should from the crown.
- Maker
- Leroy & Fils, 35 avenue de l'Opéra, Paris
- Model
- Single-button pulsometer chronograph
- Reference
- 857
- Case number
- 156548
- Date
- C.1935
- Case material
- 18ct yellow gold, French eagle's head marks
- Case diameter
- 32.2mm
- Lug to lug
- 38.7mm
- Movement
- Valjoux 13-ligne VZ, manual wind, column-wheel chronograph operated by a button in the crown
- Jewels
- 17
- Dial
- Champagne, printed Breguet-style Arabic numerals, pulsometer scale graduated for 30 pulsations
- Complications
- Chronograph, 30-minute register, subsidiary seconds, pulsometer
- Hands
- Blued steel
- Country
- France (case and retailer), Switzerland (movement)
- Warranty
- 12 months, mechanical, through Vintage Times Amsterdam from date of delivery
12-month mechanical warranty through Vintage Times Amsterdam from date of delivery.
