Extremely rare Swiss gold trip minute repeating lever Circa 1897

Gold open faced trip minute repeater by Patek Philippe
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An extremely rare and heavy Swiss 18 carat gold open faced trip minute repeating lever pocket watch made for Henry J. Howe, Syracuse, New York, U.S.A., circa 1897. Sold to Clifford D. Beebe. ½ Plate movement, lever escapement, two hammers, two gongs, two going barrels with click works, gold screw compensation balance. The gold cuvette is inscribed Clifford D. Beebe from his wife Maude C. Beebe Dec. 25th 1901. White enamel dial with black Arabic hours, red Arabic five minute numerals and sunk subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock. Plain monogrammed case, releasing of the minute repeating by a coaxial button in the crown.
Dial signed, case numbered, movement signed and numbered. Comes with the original mahogany presentation box and a certificate.
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Diameter: 48 mm
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Weight: 104 g
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Signed: Patek Philippe & Cie Genève Suisse
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Trip-minute repeaters. Patek Philippe created the first double-train trip repeaters around 1900. The production continued in very small numbers over the next 25 years. Less than 30 watches with the mechanism are known today.
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Clifford D. Beebe was director of the Rochester Syracuse and Eastern Railroad Company. The company was founded on November 7th, 1901, with a capital of $ 3,500,000 to connect Syracuse, N.Y. and Rochester with a street surface electric line over a distance of 100 miles.
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The Rochester, Syracuse and Eastern Railroad was one of ten lines of the Clifford D. Beebe syndicate and one of five which operated out of Syracuse. It was different from his other railroad lines in that it was built from scratch by Beebe and was his pride and joy. Unfortunately, it was the least successful financially because of competition from the new gasoline automobile, hard surface roads and the established steam railroads. It is said, that had the electric interurban railroads been established before the arrival of the automobile and the hard surface roads, they still might be a part of our national economy. Although it was not the first electrified railroad considered for the area, it was the first one to be built which offered the farmer a chance to become better acquainted with the nearby towns, and it first introduced city people to the advantages of suburban living. The Rochester, Syracuse and Eastern was incorporated under New York laws on November 7th, 1901 for the purpose of constructing a high-speed double track electric railroad between Rochester and Syracuse. Location surveys were run in 1902 and construction began in August, 1904. All operations were discontinued on June 27th, 1931 and the property was subsequently dismantled. The $144,000 per mile cost of construction made the railroad an over improvement based on its short life span. The original cost was undoubtedly a contributing factor in the road’s demise within twenty five years. But the electric rivaled many of the steam trains in speed and excelled most of them in convenience and all of them in economy.
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On May 1st, 1839 the Polish businessman and aristocrat Antoine Norbert Count de Patek and the Polish watchmaker Franciszek Czapek founded a company in Geneva named Patek, Czapek & Cie. Czapek lived in Switzerland since 1832 and changed his name to François Czapek when he became nationalized. The company ran well but each went their own way in 1844 and set up their own company: Czapek & Cie which continued till 1869 and Patek & Cie. 1844 Patek met the French watchmaker Jean-Adrien Philippe at the Paris World’s Fair. Philippe had already enriched the watch’s history with one of its most revolutionary inventions: the crown winding. Since then watches needed no longer to be wound with an additional key, but both the winding and the time adjustment of the hands could now be performed much easier by the crown. On May 15^th, 1845 Jean-Adrien Philippe and Vincent Gostkowski entered the company. In the same year, a patent for a watch with a winding stem and hand adjustment mechanism is applied. They produce the first watch with a minute repeater. On January 1^st, 1851 the company’s name was changed to Patek, Philippe & Cie. In 1881, a patent for a precision adjustment is applied by Philippe. On February 1^st, 1901 Patek, Philippe & Cie was converted into a stock corporation and renamed Ancienne Manufacture d’Horlogerie Patek, Philippe & Cie S.A. A patent for a double chronograph is applied in 1902. The company continues through significant inventions, which are highly regarded. In 1932, Patek Philippe was taken over by Charles and Jean Stern, after which the company name changed to Patek Philippe S.A. Thierry Stern (fourth generation) took office in 2009 as president. The company has 70 patents and produces the entire clockwork in-house. Their luxurious timepieces are of high quality and therefore often raise record amounts at auctions. A pocket watch produced in 1933 was sold at auction for 11 million euros in 1999. A world record at that time. On November 11^th, 2014, it was auctioned again and this time it was sold for 19 million euros. On the occasion of the 150^th-anniversary celebration in 1989, the legendary Calibre 89 is presented, which took nine years to develop. With 33 complications and 1728 components, this watch is regarded as a pocket watch of superlatives. Both dials together it has 24 hands and 12 dials, in addition, a minute repeater with a large and small carillion, an alarm function, a tourbillon, a perpetual calendar, a split seconds chronograph movement and over 20 other complications. The most complicated pocket watch movement at all. Patek Philippe, together with Audemars Piguet (1875), Vacheron Constantin (1755) and A. Lange und Söhne (1845) is considered to be ‘the big four’ in the watchmaking world. Today it is one of the few still independent watch companies. The company is also the only Geneva manufacturer, whose entire production of mechanical watch movements is awarded with the Geneva Seal (Poinçon de Genève).