Swiss 18 carat gold open faced lever pocket watch Circa 1900

Gold open faced watch by Patek Philippe
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A very fine Swiss 18 carat gold open faced lever pocket watch made for the Hennegen-Bates Company, Baltimore, circa 1900. Bridge movement, a lever escapement and gold screw compensation balance. White enamel dial with black Arabic hours, an outer minute track with red Arabic five-minute numerals, sunk subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock and Louis XIV hands. The plain case with an elaborately engraved monogram on the back. Dial signed Hennegen-Bates Company, movement numbered and signed Patek, Philippe & Cie Genève Suisse and Hennegen-Bates Company Baltimore, case numbered.
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Diameter: 44 mm
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Weight: 67 g
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Signed: Patek, Philippe & Cie Genève Suisse
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The Hennegen-Bates Company was a jeweller and silversmith in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The company existed from 1857 to about 1955. The business was burnt to the ground during the Great Baltimore Fire in 1904. Only the store’s massive fire-proof safe survived.
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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 was applied. They produced 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 was 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 was 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-second 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).