Swiss minute repeating split seconds chronograph Circa 1905

Pocket watch by S. Smith & Son “Watchmaker to the Admiralty”
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An important and heavy Swiss precision minute repeating hunting cased pocket watch with split seconds chronograph, circa 1905.
18 carat gold case with gold dome, slide for repeating mechanism, pusher for chronograph at “11” and “1” and case maker’s punch mark “SS”. Off-white enamel dial with Roman hours, Arabic minutes/seconds, subsidiary dial for the constant seconds, subsidiary dial for the 60-min. counter, split-seconds chronograph and blued spade hands. 3/4 plate movement, frosted, gilt, screwed gold chatons, finely ground, bevelled chronograph steel parts, ratchet wheel, English lever escapement, gold screw compensation balance, blued balance spring, chatoned diamond endstone on balance.
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Diameter: 54 mm
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Weight: 175 g
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Signed: S. Smith & Son
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S.Smith & Son.
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 that had its own research laboratories; in the next generation Sir Alan Herbert Smith extended the company 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. Even among all the British Grand Complication watches of the 20th century this watch stands out.