Swiss 14 Carat gold keyless lever Art Deco pocket watch Circa 1925

Gold open faced watch by International Watch Company
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A very fine Swiss 14 Carat gold open faced keyless lever Art Deco pocket watch, circa 1920’s. Frosted gilt movement, 16 jewels, straight line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring. Hinged gold cuvette. An ivory coloured dial with applied gold Arabic hours, outer minute dots, sunk subsidiary seconds and gold cathedral hands. The hinged case back is decorated with vertical alternating stripes, decorative band and bow.
Dial signed, case and movement signed and numbered. Accompanied by a 22 cm gold watch chain.
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Diameter: 52 mm
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Signed: International Watch Co Schaffhausen
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International Watch Company Schaffhausen (IWC) was founded in 1868 by Florentine Ariosto Jones (1841–1916), an American engineer and watchmaker from Boston, Massachusetts, who had been a director of E. Howard & Co, Boston, America’s leading watchmaking company at the time. He established the company with the intention of combining modern engineering technology from the U.S. with the craftsmanship of the Swiss to manufacture high-quality watches exclusively for the American market. Then, wages in Switzerland were relatively low although there was a ready supply of skilled watchmaking labour mainly carried out by people in their homes. Jones encountered opposition to his plans in French-speaking Switzerland. People feared for their jobs and the work they did at home because he wanted to open a factory. In 1850 the town of Schaffhausen was in danger of being left behind in the Industrial Age. At this stage, watch manufacturer and industrialist Johann Heinrich Moser built Schaffhausen’s first hydroelectric plant and laid the cornerstone for future industrialization. He probably met Jones in Le Locle and showed great interest in his plans. Together, they laid the foundations for the only watch manufacturer in north east Switzerland: the International Watch Company in Schaffhausen.