Lot 423

S. Smith & Son, 9 Strand, London, Makers to the admiralty, Movement No. 192-B 10, Case No. 19210, 55 mm, 171 g, circa 1898
An heavy half hunting pocket precision watch with 52,5 min. carousel and "Kew certificate class "A" 83-3 marks especially good"
Case: silver, case maker punch mark "SS". Dial: enamel, off-white. Movm.: 3/4 plate movement, ébauche: Bahne Bonniksen, gold screw compensation balance.
"Carousel" watches are a design by the Danish watchmaker Bahne Bonniksen, who registered the patent in 1892 in England. His intention was to create a compromise between the "expensive" tourbillon and a normal chronometer - and he actually achieved better results with his carousel than some of the tourbillons.
S. Smith & Son
A leading firm in London for high quality and complicated watches at the turn of the century, S. Smith & Son was founded in 1851 by the jeweller and watchmaker Samuel Smith. In addition to the wide range of watches and clocks for private customers, Smith's also built reliable chronometers which made the firm a supplier to the Admiralty. Under the management of Herbert S.A. Smith the firm developed into a large manufacturing company that had its own research laboratories; in the next generation Sir Alan Herbert Smith extended the company product range further and began with the production of automobile and aircraft instruments. Around this time a period of general decline for British horology began; even so, a few British watchmakers created magnificent, ultra-complicated watches, as if to prove to the world that they were still the best. Some of these watches were made in collaboration with the most renowned Swiss watch companies. Charles Frodsham, Edward John Dent, and Samuel Smith were the London watchmakers best known for this, as well as J. W. Player in Coventry.