Important English lever with 52½ minute carrousel Circa 1898

Silver deck watch by S. Smith & Son
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An important, heavy English silver half hunting cased pocket watch with 52½ minute carrousel and Kew certificate class A, 83-3 marks especially good, circa 1898. Frosted gilt 3/4 plate movement, ébauche: Bahne Bonniksen, chatoned, Bonniksen carrousel revolving in 52½ minutes, English lever escapement, gold screwed compensation balance, diamond endstone on balance. Off-white enamel dial with radial Roman numerals, auxiliary seconds and blued double spade hands. Plain case, tiered, polished with case maker’s punch mark SS and inlaid cobalt blue enamelled radial Roman numerals. Dial and movement signed and numbered.
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Diameter: 55 mm
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Weight: 171 g
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Signed: S. Smith & Son 9 Strand, London
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Carrousel watches are designed by the Danish watchmaker Bahne Bonniksen, who registered the patent in 1892 in England. He intended to create a compromise between the expensive tourbillon and a normal chronometer; he achieved better results with his carousel than some tourbillons.
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S. Smith & Son, Makers to the Admiralty. A leading firm in London for high-quality and complicated watches at the turn of the century. S. Smith & Son was founded in 1851 by the jeweller and watchmaker Samuel Smith. In addition to the wide range of watches and clocks for private customers, Smith’s also built reliable chronometers, which made the firm a supplier to the Admiralty. Under the management of Herbert S.A. Smith, the firm developed into a large manufacturing company with its research laboratories; in the next generation, Sir Alan Herbert Smith extended the company’s product range further and began with the production of automobile and aircraft instruments. Around this time, a period of general decline for British horology began; even so, a few British watchmakers created magnificent, ultra-complicated watches as if to prove to the world that they were still the best. Some of these watches were made in collaboration with the most renowned Swiss watch companies. Charles Frodsham, Edward John Dent and Samuel Smith were the London watchmakers best known for this, as well as J.W. Player in Coventry.