French mock pendulum oignon single handed Circa 1680

Oignon with mock pendulum
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A French one-handed verge pocket watch “Oignon” with mock pendulum, circa 1680.
A collection of two “Oignon” verge pocket watches.
This watch consist, a dial from brass, firegilt , enamel cartouches and radial Roman numerals. It has a brass case, a full plate movement, a chain/fusee  and a “mock pendulum balance”
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Diameter: 59 mm
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Weight: 177 g
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Signed: Firmin, Paris
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French watchmaker François Marie Firmin worked as a maker and retailer of timepieces in Paris and is listed with premises in the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève area in 1713. Firmin died after 1726.
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“Oignons” were most popular in France during the last 30 years of the Sun King’s reign; only a few of them were produced later than that. Single-handed oignons such as this one are always wound through the hand’s pivot where a central steel wheel under the dial transmits the power to another wheel on the worm gear shaft; two-handed oignons are designed with a winding hole in the dial. Presumably there were workshops in France that produced ebauches for oignons, however, as of today no such ebauche has ever surfaced. Oignons have a large gap between the plates which means that the parts of the movement are well visible; the viewer can easily see the individual parts and how they work like in a large-scale model – this was part of the great appeal these watches had. The oignon is robust and useful pocket watches that – in contrast to the previous pocket and pendant watches at the time – shows the time with adequate accuracy.