Pallet stones exposed, the acting faces flat. Endstones of ruby to the balance and escape wheel.Įscapement: Club tooth lever, straight line layout, short lever, double roller, impulse pin triangular in section and set directly into the balance arm. Jewelled: from the centre onwards except that there is no centre jewel in the front plate. Train: Wheels gilded with 5 crossings the steel escape wheel with 4. Mainspring: height 0.55 mm.,(3) thickness 0.10 mm The pallet bridge in steel.īarrel and Mainspring: A recessed cover to the going barrelīarrel: I diameter 8.00 mm., height 0.6 mm. Blued-steel moon hands.įrame: Bar movement with a hanging barrel. The inner case is also hinged so that it can be lifted out for the winding and handsetting.ĭial and Hands: Metal canister dial with Arabic numerals. The slide bearing the monarchs head has a secret hinge and a press piece allows it to spring open. Gold coin watch with a club tooth lever escapementīox: A red box with a hinged lid embossed in gold "Coin Watch".Ĭase: A gold £5 piece of 1911(2) hollowed out so as to act like a hunter case. Although unsigned, the movement calibre is similar to those made in Schaffhausen by the International Watch Company.Ĭomment from Richard Good, Catalogue of Watches in the British Museum. The watch then swings out on a hinge to facilitate winding and setting. The difference here is that the winding button is set at neither 12 o'clock nor 3 o'clock, but is off-set at about 2 o'clock to allow it to fit inside the case. The fine, matt-finish, buff-coloured dial is identical to those found in other small watches of the period and the moon-pattern pierced blued-steel hands are typical. The movement is a standard, high-quality 19-jewel calibre with club-tooth lever escapement. The watch housed in the coin is unsigned, but it is a well-made, typically Swiss example of the period. This St George, which he designed and produced in 1817, is perhaps his most famous work. These are the initials of Benedetto Pistrucci (1783-1855), a renowned engraver and die-cutter who was born in Italy but came to England where he worked at the Royal Mint from 1815 onwards. The reverse of the coin depicts St George and the dragon with 'BP' beneath. This celebrated Australian-born sculptor and artist was commissioned in 1910 to design the Coronation Medal for King George V, and this was followed by designs for new coinage. On the obverse, beneath the portrait bust of King George V, are the initials 'BM' for Sir Edgar Bertram MacKennal, RA (1863-1931). The coin used in this example is a £5 gold piece minted in 1911. The skill required to make such a watch should not be underestimated and it is a testament to the art of the watchmaker that such precision in manufacture could be achieved. Meylan using a twenty-franc gold coin, dated 1826, can be found in the Neuchâtel Museum. The origin of the idea is obscure but certainly the Swiss maker Philippe-Samuel Meylan was one of the first to do it, and an example made by F.A. A minuscule push button, hidden in the milled edge of the coin, opens the case. The precision with which the work has been carried out is evident in the fact that no join can be seen between the flip-open cover and the body of the case which holds the movement and dial. The second gives up its outer face to provide the flip-open cover. The first coin is turned away to produce a hollow centre to house the watch. In order to achieve this, two coins would have been used. Here the system is taken a step further with the watch being incorporated into the body of a gold coin. The making of extremely thin watches was developed in Switzerland during the 1830s for a fine example se registration no. Text from 'Watches', by David Thompson, London, 2008, p.
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