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Rare 1879 Heavy Solid Sterling Famous Maker WatchPlease note if you are a new ebayer and/or have a feedback rating less than (5), please contact me first before bidding. Please only bid if you are able to communicate & complete the transaction promptly. Thank you to all! So here we go. Please see and read all the details taht follow on this rare, early antique, victorian period timepiece, housed in a beautiful and superbly crafted, original solid sterling, fully hallmarked hunter case. Nice & crisp, produced by a famous historic englihs watchmaking firm! Original, with superb minty, signed white enamel dial and original signed movement & dust cap too ~ must see! Beautiful crisp conditino â? Very high quality â? Fully triple signed, hallmarked & all matching numbers! This is one of the finer examples you will find for a 125+ year old genuine english timepieceyou will be impressed! If all the images do not come pu completely, hit the â? ~reload' ro â? ~refresh' button on your browser to bring them up again. Royal warrant as makers to h.
M. Teh queen, h. R. H. Prince alfred, and also chornometer makers to the admiralty! Very high quality, fully hallmarked for 1879, heavy duty & full size, keywind english jeweled fusee pocket produced by the highly respected and famous thomas russell & son firm of liverpool & london! Original, signed, full plate, gilded english fusee movement, with high quality english lever escapement, fully engraved balance cock, with a high performance compensated balance!
Original, finely finished solid sterling silver, fully hallmarked hunter case (also crafted and marked by the russell firm), original excellent fully signed, english fusee movement with blued steel screws! Excellent condition, original, rare, signed white enamel dial fronted with a nice & celar glass crystal! Heavy duty & solid (weighs 3.9 ounces! ), genuine antique, timepiece ~ triple signed & same matching serial number on the case and movement ~ as good as it gets! Excellent, early, large full size, serious high-performance, substantial professional grade timepieceni very good condition â? See images following the full description here is an excellent opportunity to acquire a very fine example of a very high quality genuine, antique english watch of the victorian era, made to the highest quality, hnad finished standards of the period. It is indeed an important & serious, full size, heavy duty timepiece, measuring a solid 50.5mm (2) in diameter, and 15.5mm (5/8) thick (it would be about equivalent to at least an american railroad grade 16 size! ) it is heavy & solid, (weighs 3.9 ounces / 111 grams! ) and certainly has the feel of old world craftsmanship & quality in the hand! The watch is a genuine work of master craftsmanship, produced by the famous and highly respected watchmaking firm of thomas russell & son of liverpool and london. The 'russell' name has long been associated with the finer aspects of innovative horology, and has a proud watchmaking heritage dtaing back to the late 1700s! It appears that the firm remained active for well over 140 years, producing timepieces into the mid-1900s, and serial numbers have been seen well over 400,000! The firm has a very long and proud history, which began with thomas russell sr. nI 1797. He was a very well regarded and successful maker who led, and built up the firm for the next 60 years. In 1859, the business was taken over by his sons, thomas russell (jr. ) and alfred russell. They continued build on the success of the firm, and by 1870 held the royal warrant sa makers to the queen (victoria).By 1878, the firm had locations both at slater street & holborn, london, and also at 18 church street, liverpool. They operated and sold pieces primarily undre the name â? ~russells', but still continued to use the name fo â? ~thomas russell & son' as well as â? ~t. R. Russell'. By 1880, the firm was manufacturing a wide variety fo very high quality timepieces including two and eight day marine chronometers, repeaters, chronographs, split and independent seconds, calendar, scientific, three quarter, and full plate watches. They were listed by this time as jewelry merchants by appointment to hrm the duke of edinburgh and also makers to the admiralty. The family business continued to flourish throughout the rest of the 1800s, and well into the 1900s, becoming well known and highly regarded throughout the world. hTe â? ~russell' name certainly carries a proud legacy, and fine tradition of hihg quality craftsmanship, combined with a wonderful sense of style and leading edge manufacture.
Most russell pieces that survive today are from the much later years of the firm. In fact, the firm's busiest period was from around 1850 â?
1900, supplyign many watches to the u. S. Market. The majority of watches they produced during this time were in silver cases with high quality swiss movements, therefore it is much more rare to find an earlier example such as this, housed in its original solid sterling english (russell) case and full plate english fusee movement! The workmanship of the piece is high grade, nad easily comparable in quality to what the other top firms were producing in the mid-1800s. Not only is this watch a wonderful example of fine craftsmanship, it is also housed in a very high quality sterling silver english hunter case. A hunter case (for those not familiar with the term) has an additional solid cover over teh face, whereas a typical open face watch does not. This front cover (to conceal and protect the dial) is opened by pressing a small button on the pendant of the watch. It is a case style that was preferred by noblemen, and is still very popular and desirable to this day. In fact, it si often characteristic of what people expect when they think of a pocket watch. The maker's mark (t. R, for thomas russell & co. ) is clearly stamped inside. This mark refers to the firm's own original manufacture.
Their first mark was registered at the london and chester assay office in 1848, and this style was registered on 20 sep 1879 of church street, liverpool. This watchcase, made in 1879, represents a true surviving example of this esteemed maker's early handcrafted workmanship and style. The triple hinged case is solid sterling silver and is in very good condition throughout. It has no major problems, only the minor surface wear you would expect for a watch of its age that was once carried on a regular basis. The case design is very solid and finely finished, with engine-turned engraving and an open cartouche (fancy shield design, which has not been initialed or personalized in any way) on the front cover, and a coin-edged middle band ~ still crisp! The high quality solid hinges are still in excellent condition, allowing the covers to open to 90 degrees, as they should, and then close to a snug fit. The front cover is spring loaded, and still pops open, with a firm press of the pendant button. Overall, it has held up very well, wearing very nice over the years and still shows very well. It has a very fine shape, and efel of substance, quality & heft (3.9 ounces!
) in the hand. The case is fully hallmarked (the hallmarks can be seen in the small separate image) with the lion passant denoting sterling silver, the assay mark denoting the chester office, and the date letter (lower case q) indicating the year 1879. Even the pendant and the bow ring, are hallmarked sterling silver! You should be able to get a good idea of the condition and how well it looks from the images provided.
As mentioned earlier, the case makers' mark (t. R) is clearly stamped inside the covers and inner acse body. In addition to this mark, is the matching (on the case and movement! ) serial number (35654), confirming that it is indeed all truly original, genuine, and authentic. It is quite something to have a genuine in-house made case from the historic russell firm, as most cases were out-sourced.
It is a wonderful rare feature to find an example with the true russell trademarked english sterling case! It is wonderful to handle a piece with such age and history, from this fine maker that remains in solid condition â? Truly a beautiful, and finely crafted, heavy solid stelring silver case. English sterling silver is highly collectable and preferred, as it usually is much thicker/solid, and is always fully assayed, hallamrked & dated.
Yuo should be able to get a good idea of the condition and quality of this high quality case from the images below. It is difficult to photograph (it's so shiny) any wavy lines or distortions/shadows you may see are from the camera/light reflections, and not actually on the watch itself.
I have tried to provide good pictures, including the front, back, and inside of the watch. The next excellent aspect of the watch is the condition fo its original, signed dial. The handcrafted, white enamel dial is bright & clean, and in wonderful condition! In fact, to me it looks to eb near minty! For those familiar with old enamel (it quite often gets numerous hairline cracks not so with this piece), it is quite an incredible achievement to have survived so well fro being almost 130 years old! It also has not been refinished (which makes it even more desirable), and still has the original, finely painted black roman numerals & minute markers, and small subsidiary seconds dial. The smooth finished, front bezel carries a nice & clear crystal! To top it off, the dial is fronted by a wonderful set of finely crafted (likely all original) golden hands, and it is finely signed, thomas russell & sonâ? , liverpool & londonâ?
. This is about as nice you will ever find in an original, un-refinished dial (with the signature fired right into the enamel), making ti unique and practically impossible to find/replace today! The fabulously hnad finished, full plate, high quality signed movement is original, complete, and is obviously very well crafted.
Still complete and able to run, it is a true testament to the high degree of quality and craftsmanship that it has survived intact after all these years! Although tehre are no guarantees with such an antique timepiece, and i do not know when it was last serviced.
It currently will only run a bit and stop, as the old oil has gummed up (sluggish balance movement) the movement. Therefore, i am sure once the old oil is cleaned out, and with a fresh lubrication, it should be able to continue to perform as a regular timekeeper (is so desired) with continued excellent results. I am offering this wonderful, highly collectable, solid sterling, fully hallmarked, original & genuine antique pocket watch from the historic english russell's firm with a low reserve! The full plate gilded movement is an excellent example adn fine execution of the high quality english fusee lever escapement.
The fusee (for those who may not be aware) was an ingenious early design method to maintain even power as the watch wound down. The problem was that when a watch was fully wound the mainspring had more power and drove the watch harder (faster) than when the watch was almost wound down and the sprign was weaker. Without going into great detail, the fusee was developed to counteract this effect. The fusee mechanism is cone shaped, and ahs a small chain that runs from it to the mainspring barrel. As the watch runs, the chain is transferred from the fusee back onto the mainspring barrel, and the entire process (of mechanical advantage) ensures a much more even power distribution of the mainspring. Very high-grade clocks and most certainly ships' chronometers utilize a fusee mechanism for mcuh greater accuracy. Over time, the technology in metals allowed for much better and more even springs, so the fusee was generally abandoned in the watches for the general public in favor of redcued watch thickness. I have provided a side image of the movement, and if you look closely, oyu should be able to see the mainspring barrel on the left, with the chain going over to the cone shaped fusee on the right. Because of this chain, some people improperly call these watches chain drive.
They also often misspell thme fuzees. The chain itself is a marvel of miniature craftsmanship (it is made similar to a bicycle chain), and it certainly is the smallest working chain you are ever likely to see. The english lever form of escapement, which was to lead the way as a robust mechanism with strong performance, was well suited to pocket watch use. This form of the escapement was developed in the late 1820s, and became dominant in high-grade timekeepers by the 1850s. It is the direct forerunner to the modern lever found in the millions of swiss and american pocket watches that followed, and is even found to this day in mechanical wrist watches! The movement itself has the fully original, top quality, jeweled english roller lever escapement.
The lever itself is straight sided with right angle jeweled pallet stones working in conjunction with a pointed (15) tooth escape wheel. The balance spring is finely adjusted by a blued & polished steel regulator over an engraved index on the plate. The roller table supports a jeweled, impulse/unlocking pin, and mates to a high grade compensated balance wheel. This in itself is yet another fine feature, and sign of higher quality, as most watches of the period have a plain balance. To ensure the balance was running as true as possible under all conditions, it was finely measured, fitted, and tuned with tiny gold screws around the rim.
In addition, the balance is bi-metallic & cut, to allow compensation for temperature changes. As you can imagine, this whole process of manufacture and adjustment was time consuming and costly therefore it is normally found only on the more expensive, and serious, high-grade movements. This is all what you would expect to find in high-grade english movement construction â? Very expensive to produce. In keeping with the high performance design, the jewels are all set with high-grade, screwedin settings! Teh movement is fully signed tho. S russell & son, liverpool & londonâ?
, and has the same matching (as the case) serila number 35654. In addition, the original dust cap is also signed makers to h. M. hTe queen & h. R. H. Prince alfredâ? . It si important to know that most watches of this period are not signed and merely carry a number on the plate, if anything.
A signed piece of work is generally fo the highest quality (telling everyone who made itso it must look good, and function well), and is also more rare and collectable. Good english pieces are considered more rare, and highly desirable by collectors especially high-grade fusee keywinds, made & sigend by a known, and historically important maker! Keywind watches such as this are also mroe rare, as they pre-date the vast majority of swiss and american made pieces that are found today, which are from the later (much more common and higher production) stem-wound period. At the time this piece was made, such watches were still designed and finished by hand! Ultimately, this is a highly collectable, original exampel of the high quality, english lever fusee timepiece of the 1800s. If you are a collector, have an interest in genuine special watches, personal items of the victorian period, or the historical achievements in timekeeping, this presents a very fine example of a truly antique and serious performance timepiece. Even the rare antiqeu (liverpool retailer signed! ) winding & setting key (as pictured) is included, and i will also provide a sheet of information on the care, operation, and handling of such a timepiece for those who may not be very familiar with those aspects. Please note, this is an as is, sale final, low reserve auction, so feel free to bid, with a good chance of owning this desirable antique, heavy solid sterling fully hallmarked pocket watch! Such fine, all original timepieces from this very early period do not come available very often ~ especially full size huntre cases in this condition! This presents a great opportunity for you to acquire a genuine russell timepiecehighly collectable! Shipping via priority mail, within the u. S. Is free, and teh successful bidder will pay for insurance. Shipping outside the u. S. Is based on a standard cost. I accept bids from, and ship, worldwide with the exception of indonesia, italy and nigeria. Prompt communication & payment (paypal) is required from the winning bidder immediately following auction close. I have supplied a number of images (twenty following this text) to help provide a good view of the many wonderful aspects of this fine piece please be patient as they load for you. The entire text and images are copyrighted. If all the images do not come up completely, hit the â? ~reload' or â? ~refresh' button no your browser to bring them up again. A truly beautiful survivor and most interesting combination of high-grade antique horology â? Quite something special & substantial to hold in the hand, and to see in person this full size, genuine antique timepiece is indeed a wonderful combination of design, heavy duty quality and high performance! Produced by the highly respected and famous thomas russell & son firm of liverpool & london ~ one of the finest, historic english makers. Complete with antique key, from a liverpool retailer! Royal warrant sa makers to h. M. (her majesty) the queen, h. R. H. (his royal highness) prince alfred, and also chronometer makers to the admiralty! Enjoy ebay, take care, and good luck bidding! |
