Swiss matt gold, diamond and sapphire set pendant watch Circa 1912

Gold, diamond and sapphire set ladies’s full hunter by IWC
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A very fine Swiss 14 carat matte gold, diamond and sapphire set hunting cased ladies’ pendant watch, circa 1912. Sold on May 29th, 1912, to the Löwy brothers in Vienna, Austria. 2/3 Plate movement with Rauschenbach’s patented device for limiting the winding of clockworks with a barrel Patent No. 31457, a piston tooth lever escapement and screw compensation balance. White enamel dial with Arabic hours, an outer minute track, sunk subsidiary seconds and spade & whip hands. The matted case with eight sapphires lined up in an arc on the front and two sparkling old cut diamonds arranged one below the other. Dial signed, case signed and numbered, movement numbered. Comes with an Extract from the Archives.
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Diameter: 32 mm
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Weight: 33 g
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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. in Boston, America’s leading watchmaking company at the time. He established the company intending to combine 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, 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 laying 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.