A9640

Early English Verge Alarm Watch

£5,750.00

Signed  Soret London
Circa   1695
A late 17th Century English single handed verge alarm in silver pair cases.
Diameter   60 mm       Depth   18 mm

Out of stock

Description

A late 17th Century English single handed verge alarm in silver pair cases.  Deep full plate fire gilt movement with five Egyptian pillars.  Fusee and chain with worm and wheel barrel setup between the plates. Wound through the pierced and engraved winged cock with small mask, small pierced and engraved foot.  Plain steel balance, silver regulator disc. Short alarm train, pierced and engraved resting barrel, large blue steel stopwork wheel.  Double headed hammer striking on a bell in the case.  Silver champleve dial, the later gilt hand on the rotating centre indicating the time, Roman numerals, blue steel alarm time hand.  Attractive silver inner case, a wide band pierced and engraved bordered by further engraving.  Later long pendant and bow.  Plain silver outer case.  

A fine early English alarm.  Although not pierced the outer appears to be original.  Unlike repeating and clockwatches an alarm only needs to sound when the watch is at rest rather than when worn.  It would make sense to leave watch without the outer having wound both trains at night.  The plain outer case could then protect the movement from dirt and dust during the day