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| Index No. A7213 | Rare Double Sided Revolutionary Calendar |
| A very rare late 18th Century double sided French verge with revolutionary time and calendar in a silver case. Full plate gilt fusee movement, the balance under the revolutionary dial and regulated by a small square at its lower edge. Round pillars. Wound through the white enamel dial showing standard two periods of 12 hour time in each day, subsidiaries for day, date and seconds. Arabic numerals for hours set at the very edge of the dial, the minutes inside them. Finely made gold hands in the form of arrows complete with feathers, the minute hand unusually shorter than the hour. On the opposite side of the watch the revolutionary time dial with its main chapter offset indicating the 10 hour day, each of 100 minutes. Subsidiaries for the 10 day week and 30 day month. Unusual stylized pierced blue steel arrow hands. The two dials are synchronised, set by a square on the 12 hour dial minute hand the revolutionary time correctly follows it the hour hand rotating once in 24 hours. Plain silver case, both bezels hinged. | ||
| Signed | Leroy - Galerie Egalite, No 88 | |
| Circa | 1795 | |
| Diameter | 51 mm | ||
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A very rare watch. The unusual, possibly unique, arrangement of the 12 hour hands makes it difficult to read the time from that dial. This may have been the purpose so that the owner would need to use the new revolutionary time. The French Revolutionary Calendar adopted in France on October 24, 1793. This sought to rationalize all measurement into units of ten alongside that of weights and size. It was never widely accepted for clocks and calendars and was abandoned by Napoleon in 1810. Few examples of watches using the Revolutionary system were made and most of these have been destroyed or converted. This watch unusually has the ten days of the week which were;
Primidi Duodi Tridi Quartidi Quintidi Sextidi Septidi Octidi Nonidi Décadi |
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