Very fine Swiss 18 Carat gold full hunter cased watch Circa 1865

Watch with minute repeater and seconde morte
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A very fine numbered gold full hunter cased watch with minute repeater and Seconde morte, made by Louis Audemars in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland, circa 1865. The numbered case of this watch was crafted from 18 Carat gold and has a monogram on the front lid. The white enamel dial has red Arabic minute numerals, black Roman hour numerals, a subsidiary seconds dial with black Arabic numerals at six o’clock and gold hands. The glazed movement has a precision lever escapement of the highest quality, gold wheels, tandem winding, minute repeater, independent stoppable center seconds and is engraved with the vendor’s signature.
The movement is signed.
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Diameter: 54 mm
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Weight: 138 g
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Signed: Sapin, Paris
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Audemars
Louis Audemars & Cie was founded in 1811 by Louis-Benjamin Audemars in the hamlet of Le Crêt Meylan near Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland. Audemars married his first wife, Julie LeCoultre, laying the foundation for the close friendship between the two companies. He had 15 children, three of them died, four daughters and eight sons remained.

Louis-Benjamin and his sons specialized in producing ébauches, they made high quality watch movements and precision complications such as repeater and chronograph mechanisms. Both design and production were carried out in house. Their products were mostly entirely hand made and are considered among the finest the world has ever seen. The craftsmanship was second to none at the time and even Breguet recognized this exceptional quality by listing the Audemars movement number next to his own in the cases, there was no greater compliment than that.

At the time watchmakers in the region made unbranded movements which they sold to users in Geneva and all over Europe. There the movements would be fitted with dials and cases and sold under the brand or name of the purchaser, therefore a timepiece of the period made in France, Germany, Russia or England might actually contain, and very often did, a movement from the Vallée de Joux. Louis-Benjamin’s ambition was to make complete cased watches signed with his own name. He never lived to achieve his goal because he died in 1833 at the age of 51. However, his sons did. They decided to train with different watchmakers and learn all the different aspects of the craft. Around 1850 they returned home and began using their combined knowledge to create their own brand. At the time manual work still played a decisive role in the production. However, development did not favour them.

Around 1840 Vacheron & Constantin were the first to equip their factory with production machinery, closely followed by LeCoultre and other companies. The new machines worked as well as the craftsmen but three times as fast, which of course reduced the purchasing price of the watches considerably. To counter this development, the Audemars’ decided to create watches which could not be made by machines, this is where they began making complicated watches and no other company but Audemars was able to reach such perfect coordination of design, precision and production. Theirs was the very first enterprise in the region of the Vallée de Joux to make complete watches from start to finish and signed with their own name. Unfortunately, they were much better watchmakers than businessmen and the company was bankrupt and liquidated in 1885.