Presentation Hunter in 14ct Gold, Cypher of Carol I

The 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.

The 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.

The 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.

Watches 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.

The marks, the movement and the full condition report are set out in the drawers below.