Goliath Triple Calendar and Moonphase, Gunmetal, c.1890
This Swiss Goliath, 66.57mm across, carries four complications: a day-of-week register, a date display, a month indicator, and a moonphase shown through an aperture in the small seconds dial, above an engraved landscape with a building. All four are fully functional.
The movement is a nickel-finished bar calibre of Swiss export production, with wave-decorated bridges, gilt wheels and blue steel screws. The calendar is written in Czech, with PON, ÚT, STŘ on the day register and LED, ÚN, BŘEZ on the month register, made for the Czech-speaking market of Bohemia and Moravia. The hands are set by a push-pin on the case band beside the pendant, with four corrector pushers in the case band, one beside each subsidiary dial, for advancing each indication independently.
The gunmetal case has a deep, uneven patina, darker in recesses and brighter at wear points. The brass bow and gilt bezel ring provide warm contrast against the dark oxidised steel. The silvered metal dial carries the honest toning of an un-restored original; the gilt floral engraving between the subdials is intact, and several of the black Roman numerals show flaking. The mineral glass crystal is intact but hazy.
The month names are the Slavic Czech forms, KVĚT for květen, LIST for listopad and PROS for prosinec, rather than the Latin-derived names of most European calendars; Bohemia and Moravia were then crown lands of Austria-Hungary. The subsidiary dials have concentric-turned centres inside a pearl minute track, and the crown is fluted brass. The case steel carries the blackened finish the Swiss case trade called acier oxydé. The screwed balance runs under a cock engraved Avance and Retard for its index regulator.
Serial number 37489 is stamped on both the outer and inner caseback.
A substantial, complicated, fully working Victorian pocket watch in honest original condition.
