Swiss 18 carat gold open faced seconde morte watch Circa 1850

Unsigned gold open faced pocket watch
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An interesting Swiss 18 carat seconde morte lever watch, circa 1850. The mechanical movement features a lever escapement. The white enamel dial includes an outer ring with black Arabic numerals and inner Roman numerals for the minutes and hours, alongside a subsidiary seconds dial at 6 o’clock, and gold filigree hands. The case, crafted from 18 carat gold, is engine turned with floral decorations surrounding the cartouche, which features initials.
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Diameter: 49 mm
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Weight: 107 g
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Signed: No name
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Seconde morte
The seconde morte, also known as deadbeat seconds, is a complication of a mechanical movement in which the second hand moves every second. This contrasts with the usual ‘running’ of the second hand. This complication is rare and was seen in the years before the quartz revolution, the 1970s and 1980s, but it died a silent death because of the same quartz revolution. The reason for this was that the second hand moves per second in almost the same way as quartz watches, which ultimately also use a frequency of 1 Hz. With that, the ‘running’ second hand became the distinction between mechanical and quartz watches. Incidentally, that external similarity only applies to the seconds hand jumping per second; the underlying mechanism of the dead seconds complication is of a completely different order.