Unusual Swiss 18 Carat pink gold hunting cased pocket watch Circa 1895

Gold watch with indication of a second local time
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A fine and unusual Swiss, 18 Carat pink gold hunting cased, a keyless gold pocket watch with extra fixed minute hand for indication of a second local time, circa 1895. Retailed by A. H. Rodanet, Constructeur de Chronometers. Sold to Rodanet on April 3, 1895. A solid, polished case, hinged gold cuvette. White enamel dial with painted radial Roman numerals, outer minute track, subsidiary seconds dial. Yellow gold spade hour and minute hands, extra blued steel minute hand. A rhodium-plated movement, 17 jewels, wolf’s tooth winding, straight-line lever escapement, cut bimetallic compensation balance, blued steel balance spring with a terminal curve, patent Patek Philippe regulator. Case and movement signed, cuvette signed by the retailer.
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Diameter: 50 mm
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Signed: Patek Philippe & Co.  Genève
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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.
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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°), conceding that hourly time zones might have 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 apply the concept as originally conceived. Newfoundland India, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, the Marquesas, and parts of Australia use half-hour deviations from standard time, and some nations, such as Nepal and the Chatham Islands use quarter-hour deviations.
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Greenwich Meantime (GMT) was established in 1675, when the Royal Observatory was built, as an aid to determining 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. About 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 minute hands one for the local time, one for GMT.