French 18 carat gold Rooster verge pocket watch Circa 1805

Gold open faced verge watch
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A French 18 carat yellow gold, keywind, open faced pocket watch made by Mercier in Paris, circa 1800-1810. It features a mechanical movement with a verge escapement and a spiral balance protected by a finely openworked cock at the back of the plate. The white enamelled dial displays Arabic numerals for the hours, baton hour markers for the minutes, and quarter markers. A winding square is located at 2 o’clock. It is fitted with Breguet type hands. The plain circular 18 carat gold case separates from the movement and features a Cock’s head (tête de coq) hallmark on the bezel, a French guarantee mark used between 1798 and 1809. The case back is monogrammed JAB. The back plate of the movement is signed Mercier à Paris and numbered 1280.
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Diameter: 54 mm
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Weight: 96.3 g
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Signed: Mercier à Paris
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Thanks to serial number 1280 and the Cock’s head hallmark (Coq), we know this watch was hallmarked between 1798 and 1809. This was a period when France introduced new standards for gold purity after the chaos of the Revolution. The watch’s Breguet-style hands and Arabic numerals show that Mercier followed the prevailing fashions of the time, which were heavily influenced by the minimalist aesthetic of Abraham-Louis Breguet.
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The signature Mercier à Paris refers to a watchmaker active in Paris during a pivotal period in French horology: the Directoire (1795–1799) and the early years of the First French Empire under Napoleon (1804–1815).
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A Rooster pocket watch (in French, a montre au coq) does not refer to an image of a rooster on the dial, but rather to a specific part inside the movement: the balance bridge (in French le coq, in English the cock).