Swiss 18k gold hunting cased lever chronograph Circa 1870

Gold chronograph with Jules Jürgensen patent hand setting mehanism
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A very fine and rare Swiss 18 carat gold hunting cased keyless lever chronograph pocket watch with Jules Jürgensen patent hand setting mechanism, circa 1870. Rhodium plated movement, Geneva striping decoration, 25 jewels, elongated counterpoised straight-line lever escapement, escape wheel and lever with gold caps for the jewels on the upper pivots, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring, index regulator, visible chronograph work. Gold cuvette, engine-turned on the border. White enamel dial with narrow Roman numerals, outer minute track, outermost red fifths of a second chronograph divisions with Arabic five second numerals, subsidiary seconds and original blued steel Breguet hands. Engine turned case with polished borders, reeded band, chronograph button at 12 for start/stop and return to- zero functions, special hand setting by the folding bow, patented by Jules Jürgensen, 15 January, 1867. Dial, case, cuvette and movement signed.
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Diameter: 52 mm
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Signed: Jules Jürgensen Copenhagen
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Jules Frédéric Jürgensen (1808-1877), the son of Urban Jürgensen, and a very eminent watchmaker himself, Jules was born in Le Locle but as a child moved with his parents to Denmark. In 1830, after the death of his father, the company was taken over by Jules and his brother Louis Urban. In 1833, Jules returned to Le Locle and built a successful business. Jürgensen, who was watchmaker to the King of Denmark, was made a Knight of the Légion d’Honneur and Knight of the Royal Order of Dannebrog. Between 1870 and 1876 he was a member of the commission of surveillance of the Geneva School of Horology, along with Ekegren and Potter; he sat on many commissions in Switzerland, judging horological contests. He stamped most of his watches on the pillar plate under the dial ‘Jules Jürgensen of Copenhagen’. After his death, the business was run by his brother and in 1886 it was sold to an employee, H. Kiens, whose sons Jules 1837-1894 and Jacques Alfred 1842-1912 continued the business, as did the House of Heuer afterward. Jürgensen invented a bow setting mechanism in 1867, to prevent accidental changing of the watch setting. In his design, the cover had to be opened in order to turn the bow far enough to engage the setting pin. In some of his watches, he did not want the back cover, which was not spring loaded, to be opened by the owner. Therefore, for his open faced watches, he used a special case whose front was designed with a bezel utilizing a lifting mechanism like that in a hunting case. The setting could be done safely, by first opening the front by pushing on the stem, turning the bow until it touched the crystal, then setting the watch.