High quality Swiss gold hunter with dual time zone Circa 1890
- Kenmerk
- TA4533
- Diameter
- 55 mm
- Estimate
- € 5.500 - 10.000
- Price sold
- € 6.500
Pink gold lever with split seconds chronograph
–
A rare combined Swiss, 18 caret pink gold keyless pocket watch, circa 1890. With independently adjustable 12 hour and 24 hour concentric dials, continuous and stoppable centre split seconds without return to zero and six hands from the centre.
A polished case, two protected buttons flanking the crown for the independent setting of both time zones, a button in the band at 12 for the stop and rejoin of the chronograph hand to the centre seconds and a hinged gold cuvette.
–
Two piece, white enamel dial with inner radial Roman numerals for the 12 hour dial, outer minute track, outer 24 hour ring and outermost chronograph track calibrated to 300 units and blued steel spade hands for the 12 hour, gold spade hands for the 24 hours and blued steel chronograph hands. Matte gilt, three quarter plate movement, jewelled to the centre with screwed gold chatons, lateral lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring with overcoil, index regulator. Case numbered.
–
A rare combined Swiss, 18 caret pink gold keyless pocket watch, circa 1890. With independently adjustable 12 hour and 24 hour concentric dials, continuous and stoppable centre split seconds without return to zero and six hands from the centre.
A polished case, two protected buttons flanking the crown for the independent setting of both time zones, a button in the band at 12 for the stop and rejoin of the chronograph hand to the centre seconds and a hinged gold cuvette.
–
Two piece, white enamel dial with inner radial Roman numerals for the 12 hour dial, outer minute track, outer 24 hour ring and outermost chronograph track calibrated to 300 units and blued steel spade hands for the 12 hour, gold spade hands for the 24 hours and blued steel chronograph hands. Matte gilt, three quarter plate movement, jewelled to the centre with screwed gold chatons, lateral lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel Breguet balance spring with overcoil, index regulator. Case numbered.
–
Diameter: 55 mm
–
Signed: No Name
–
This very high quality and the unusual watch has provision for displaying the time in two different zones on both a 12 hour and 24 hour basis. Each dial is independently adjustable so that both local time and standard time can be set. For the 24 hour dial, the hour hand makes one full revolution in 24 hours, the minute hand one revolution per hour. The 12 hour dial operates in the usual way. Remarkably the hands for all functions are driven from the center. The constant running centre seconds has a split seconds function that can be used as a chronograph but without the return to zero function of a true chronograph. The adoption of universal time zones had not yet taken place when this watch was made although Greenwich meantime was officially in place as standard time by 1880. Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time (originally apparent solar time, as with a sundial; and, later, mean solar time). Mean solar time is the average over a year of apparent solar time. Its difference from apparent solar time is the equation of time This became increasingly awkward as railways and telecommunications improved because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude, which was usually not a convenient number.
–
This problem could be solved by synchronizing the clocks in all localities, but then in many places, the local time would differ markedly from the solar time to which people are accustomed. Time zones were first proposed for the entire world by Canada’s Sir Sandford Fleming in 1876 as an appendage to the single 24 hour clock he proposed for the entire world (located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian). In 1879 he specified that his universal day would begin at the anti-meridian of Greenwich (now called 180°) while conceding that hourly time zones might have some limited local use. He continued to advocate his system at subsequent international conferences. In October 1884, the International Meridian Conference did not adopt his time zones because they were not within its purview. The conference did adopt a universal day of 24 hours beginning at Greenwich midnight, but specified that it “shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable”. Nevertheless, most major countries had adopted hourly time zones by 1929.
–
Today, all nations use standard time zones for secular purposes, but they do not all apply the concept as originally conceived. Newfoundland, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, the Marquesas, as well as parts of Australia, use half-hour deviations from standard time, and some nations, such as Nepal and the Chatham Islands use quarter hour deviations. Greenwich Meantime (GMT) Was established in 1675, when the Royal Observatory was built, as an aid to determine longitude at sea by mariners. The first time zone in the world was established by British Railways on December 1, 1847 with GMT hand carried chronometers. On August 23, 1852, time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Even though 98% of Great Britain’s public clocks were using GMT by 1855, it was not made Britain’s legal time until August 2, 1880. Some old clocks from this period (as with the present watch) have two dials or two sets of hands one for the local time, one for GMT.
–
Signed: No Name
–
This very high quality and the unusual watch has provision for displaying the time in two different zones on both a 12 hour and 24 hour basis. Each dial is independently adjustable so that both local time and standard time can be set. For the 24 hour dial, the hour hand makes one full revolution in 24 hours, the minute hand one revolution per hour. The 12 hour dial operates in the usual way. Remarkably the hands for all functions are driven from the center. The constant running centre seconds has a split seconds function that can be used as a chronograph but without the return to zero function of a true chronograph. The adoption of universal time zones had not yet taken place when this watch was made although Greenwich meantime was officially in place as standard time by 1880. Before the adoption of time zones, people used local solar time (originally apparent solar time, as with a sundial; and, later, mean solar time). Mean solar time is the average over a year of apparent solar time. Its difference from apparent solar time is the equation of time This became increasingly awkward as railways and telecommunications improved because clocks differed between places by an amount corresponding to the difference in their geographical longitude, which was usually not a convenient number.
–
This problem could be solved by synchronizing the clocks in all localities, but then in many places, the local time would differ markedly from the solar time to which people are accustomed. Time zones were first proposed for the entire world by Canada’s Sir Sandford Fleming in 1876 as an appendage to the single 24 hour clock he proposed for the entire world (located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian). In 1879 he specified that his universal day would begin at the anti-meridian of Greenwich (now called 180°) while conceding that hourly time zones might have some limited local use. He continued to advocate his system at subsequent international conferences. In October 1884, the International Meridian Conference did not adopt his time zones because they were not within its purview. The conference did adopt a universal day of 24 hours beginning at Greenwich midnight, but specified that it “shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable”. Nevertheless, most major countries had adopted hourly time zones by 1929.
–
Today, all nations use standard time zones for secular purposes, but they do not all apply the concept as originally conceived. Newfoundland, India, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, the Marquesas, as well as parts of Australia, use half-hour deviations from standard time, and some nations, such as Nepal and the Chatham Islands use quarter hour deviations. Greenwich Meantime (GMT) Was established in 1675, when the Royal Observatory was built, as an aid to determine longitude at sea by mariners. The first time zone in the world was established by British Railways on December 1, 1847 with GMT hand carried chronometers. On August 23, 1852, time signals were first transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Even though 98% of Great Britain’s public clocks were using GMT by 1855, it was not made Britain’s legal time until August 2, 1880. Some old clocks from this period (as with the present watch) have two dials or two sets of hands one for the local time, one for GMT.
Share this page:
