Swiss silver jumping centre seconds lever watch Circa 1880

Silver lever with seconde morte
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A rare Swiss silver open faced independent jumping center seconds lever pocket watch with a second time zone, calendar and compass, circa 1880. Bridge movement, lever escapement, two barrels, gold screw compensation balance. White enamel dial with time indication at 3 and 9 o’clock, a compass at 12 o’clock, the date and days of the week at 6 o’clock, outer minute divisions with Arabic quarter hour numerals. The case back with an amorous scene showing a quite self confident gentleman and a rather reserved and thoughtful lady, the pair is surrounded by exquisite, abundant engraving that includes the curved back of the garden bench as well as the highest treetops, maker’s mark K.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Weight: 131 g
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Signed: M. LeBlanc
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The seconde morte, also known as dead beat seconds, is a complication of a mechanical movement in which the second hand moves every second. This is in contrast to the usual ‘running’ of the second hand. This complication is rare and was seen in the years before the quartz revolution, the 1970’s and 1980’s, but actually died a silent death because of the same quartz revolution. The reason for this was that the second hand moves per second in almost the same way as quartz watches, which ultimately also use a frequency of 1Hz. With that, the ‘running’ second hand became the distinction between mechanical watches and quartz watches. Incidentally, that external similarity only applies to the second hand jumping per second, the underlying mechanism of the dead seconds complication is of course of a completely different order.