Live Auction 7851500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe
A VICTORIAN BRASS-BOUND AND MOUNTED COROMANDEL EIGHT DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER
Lot 35

A VICTORIAN BRASS-BOUND AND MOUNTED COROMANDEL EIGHT DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER

WILLIAM WEICHERT CARDIFF, NO. 2261. CIRCA 1875

Closed27 May 2010

Price Realised

GBP 5,625

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A VICTORIAN BRASS-BOUND AND MOUNTED COROMANDEL EIGHT DAY MARINE CHRONOMETER
WILLIAM WEICHERT CARDIFF, NO. 2261. CIRCA 1875
BOX: ivory plaque inscribed 'WILLM. WEICHERT./MAKER TO THE/HONRABLE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY/NO. 2261.', recessed handles, brass bowl and gimbal DIAL: 120 mm. diameter silvered dial with power reserve ring and inscribed with Prize Medal 'garters' for Paris 1867 and Havre 1868, signed 'WILLM. WEICHERT. ''PATENTEE''/MAKER TO THE HONRABLE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY/119 BUTE DOCKS CARDIFF.', subsidiary seconds ring inscribed '226/THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN CROSS/AND CROWN FROM HIS MAJESTY/THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA', blued steel hands (main hands replaced), sight ring inscribed 'BY APPOINTMENT TO H. M. THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA' MOVEMENT: single chain fusee with maintaining power, sub frame with chain guard, Earnshaw-type detent escapement to cut bimetallic balance with temperature compensation weights; later winding key
9 in. (23 cm.) high; 8 in. (20.5 cm.) square

Anonymous sale, Christie's London, 25 November 1998, lot 379.

Specialist note

William Weichert is recorded working in London, 1865-1887 and Bute Docks, Cardiff, 1871-1885.
He exhibited his chronometers in Paris in 1867, Havre in 1868 and won a Grand Medal of Merit at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. He was maker to the Honourable of Admiralty and the Emperor of Austria who awarded him the Golden Cross and Crown and also the patentee of the centre seconds chronometer.
Tony Mercer (Chronometer Makers of the World, London, 1988, p. 252) describes him as 'a fine workman who made many chronometers and trained many of the craftsmen who kept the Bristol Channel shipshape'.