German rare silver open faced verge pocket watch Circa 1720

Silver fine pocket watch by B.H. Kuhlmann
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A fine and rare German silver open faced verge pocket watch, circa 1720. The polished case with maker’s mark PR. A signed silver champlevé style dial with inlaid radial Roman hours, an engraved center and gold Louis XV hands. The signed florally engraved full plate movement with applied florally pierced and engraved silver ornaments is key wound, has chain and fusee, Egyptian movement pillars, a three arm steel balance and pierced silver balance cock.
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Diameter: 50 mm
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Weight: 106 g
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Signed: Bernhard Hinrich Kuhlmann Detmold
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Bernhard Hinrich Kuhlmann also known as Bernhard Kuhlmann was born in Osnabrück. On April 20th, 1717, he was employed as a court watchmaker in Germany and worked in Detmold.

Johan Tilman Marx from Cologne worked for Kuhlman for about three years, “in order to perfect me better in this art” as he wrote himself.

Bernhard Kuhlmann, then based in Cologne, is mentioned in the book “Collection of Nature and Medicine”, as well as in related art and literature reports from 1723-1724. D.J.H Degner wrote: “Bernard Kulmann, who is very famous because of his good science in this art and precision manufacturing of watches”.

Perhaps Kuhlmann was the ancestor of watchmaker Bernhard Friedrich Kuhlmann, who came from Münsterland and took over a watch and workshop in Wilhelmshaven in 1873. Precision mechanical work for the navy soon represented the main part of the entrepreneurial activities. The manufacture of navigation, direction finding and targeting instruments built up by Bernhard Friedrich Kuhlmann can be regarded as the nucleus of today’s Kuhlmann company.

1883, there was a watchmaker Heinrich Kuhlmann listed in the GasStraße 45, J.B. Kuhlmann Uhrmacher-Specialist and Post Agency in the Weseler Straße 25 and still Wilhelm Kuhlmann, watchmaker and postal agent in the Warendorfer Straße 20.