Swiss single train grande sonnerie repeating clockwatch Circa 1900

Silver keyless lever clock watch by LeCoultre
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A fine and very rare, large Swiss silver open faced single train grande sonnerie striking and trip-quarter repeating keyless lever clock watch with single hammer and gong, circa 1900. Rhodium plated movement, Geneva striping decoration, one train for both the going and the striking, 29 jewels, straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring with overcoil, index regulator, striking and repeating with a single hammer on one gong activated by a trip button on the band, sonnerie/silence lever beneath the bezel. Hinged silver cuvette. White enamel dial with blue Arabic hours on off-white circular reserves, outer gilt dot minute divisions and 24-hour numerals, subsidiary seconds at 6 o’clock, blued steel spade hands. Polished case. Movement signed under the hammer, case numbered.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Signed: LeCoultre & Co
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The movement of this timepiece is very unusual in being a full grande sonnerie striking clock watch but with a single train powered by one barrel instead of the usual two barrels. To conserve energy, the quarter striking and repeating is conducted by a single hammer on one gong.
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LeCoultre & Cie. The earliest records of the LeCoultre family in Switzerland date from the 16th century, when Pierre LeCoultre (circa 1530 – 1600), a French Huguenot, fled to Geneva from Lisy-sur-Ourcq, France to escape religious persecution. In 1558, he obtained the status of inhabitant but left the following year to acquire a plot of land in the Vallée de Joux. Over time, a small community formed and in 1612, Pierre LeCoultre’s son built a church there, marking the founding of the village of Le Sentier where the company’s manufacturing is still based today. In 1833, following his invention of the machine to cut watch pinions from steel, Antoine LeCoultre (1803-1881) founded a small watchmaking workshop in Le Sentier where he honed his horological skills to create high-quality timepieces. In 1844, he invented the world’s most precise measuring instrument at the time, the millionomètre, and in 1847 he created a keyless system to rewind and set watches. Four years later, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision and mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London. In 1866, at a time when watchmaking skills were divided up among hundreds of small workshops, Antoine and his son, Elie LeCoultre (1842-1917), established the Vallée de Joux’s first full-fledged manufacture, LeCoultre & Cie, bundling their employees’ expertise under one roof. Under this setup, they developed the first partially mechanized production processes for complicated movements in 1870. By the same year, the manufacturer employed 500 people and was known as the Grande Maison of the Vallée de Joux. By 1900, it had created over 350 different calibres of which 128 were equipped with chronograph functions and 99 with repeater mechanisms. From 1902 and for the next 30 years, LeCoultre & Cie produced most of the movement blanks for Patek Philippe of Geneva.