I · The Compendium/II · The Design/III · The Collector's Piece/IV · Acquisition
Room I · The Compendium
Four instruments, one revolving cube
Arthur Imhof founded his workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1924, and within a generation the name had become shorthand for the finest Swiss desk clocks: precise, beautifully finished, and often more inventive than anything else on the writing table. This is Imhof at its most characterful, the revolving weather compendium, a single gilt-brass cube that carries four instruments and turns to show whichever one you want.
Room II · The Design
Turn it, and the next face appears
Lift the chrome ball finial on top and the cube rotates on its turned pedestal, presenting each face in turn. One side is the clock, its champagne dial signed ImHof, with applied gilt baton markers and gilt hands. Turn it and you meet the aneroid barometer, its silvered dial printed in three languages. Turn again for the thermometer, reading in both Centigrade and Fahrenheit, and once more for the hygrometer. Every dial is marked Swiss, and every one is clean and sharp.
Behind the clock face sits the Imhof calibre 244, a fifteen-jewel straight-line lever escapement with a monometallic balance, flat balance spring and index regulator. This is a properly jewelled watch movement driving a desk clock, not the pin-lever mechanism found in ordinary novelty barometers, and it runs for eight days on a single winding.
Behind the clock face sits the Imhof calibre 244, a fifteen-jewel straight-line lever escapement with a monometallic balance, flat balance spring and index regulator. This is a properly jewelled watch movement driving a desk clock, not the pin-lever mechanism found in ordinary novelty barometers, and it runs for eight days on a single winding.
Room III · The Collector's Piece
They rarely survive complete
The case is polished gilt brass throughout, built as a little architectural object: ball finials at each corner of the top plate, slim columns down the edges of the cube, and a stepped, turned pedestal that lets the whole thing swivel smoothly. It measures a compact 79mm across the cube face and stands 120mm to the top of the finial, small enough for a desk yet substantial in the hand.
Compendiums like this were made to be given, the sort of object that marked a promotion or a retirement and then sat on the same desk for forty years. They rarely survive complete. A dial cracks, a glass is lost, an instrument seizes. This one is whole, correct and working on every face, signed by one of the best names in Swiss desk horology.
Compendiums like this were made to be given, the sort of object that marked a promotion or a retirement and then sat on the same desk for forty years. They rarely survive complete. A dial cracks, a glass is lost, an instrument seizes. This one is whole, correct and working on every face, signed by one of the best names in Swiss desk horology.
Caseone honest fault
Very Good
Polished gilt brass. All four corner ball-finials, edge columns and the turned swivel pedestal present and intact. Light spotting to the top plate around the finial; minor, honest surface wear elsewhere. Swivel smooth.
Dial
Excellent
Four dials (clock, barometer, thermometer, hygrometer), all clean, legible and free of losses. Applied gilt baton markers on the clock.
Movementone honest fault
Very Good
Imhof Cal. 244, 15-jewel straight-line lever escapement, 8-day. Winds, sets and runs correctly; all three weather instruments respond.
Crystal
Excellent
All four glasses present and clean, no cracks or chips.
Windingone honest fault
Very Good
Rear-wound via the lifting knob. Winds and sets correctly.
- Maker
- Imhof (Arthur Imhof, La Chaux-de-Fonds), Switzerland
- Object
- Revolving four-instrument desk weather compendium
- Instruments
- 8-day clock, aneroid barometer, thermometer (C/F), hygrometer
- Movement
- Imhof Cal. 244, 15-jewel straight-line lever escapement, 8-day
- Case
- Gilt brass, revolving cube on turned pedestal, chrome ball finial
- Dimensions
- 79.13mm cube face, 120mm overall height
- Dials
- Silvered / champagne, trilingual (English / French / German), marked Swiss
- Era
- Mid-century, c.1955
- Condition
- Very Good, fully working
The Estate Collection
Room IV · Acquisition
€1.100
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Imhof
€1.100
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Imhof Weather Compendium, c.1955
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