Split-Seconds Observatory Chronometer

The 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.

The dial is white enamel in excellent order, signed Ulysse Nardin, Locle & 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.

The 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.

Of 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.

The 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.