Beschreibung:

A rare American nickel plated brass carrousel carriage timepiece with duplex escapement Waterbury Clock Company, circa 1880 The movement with monometallic balance and three-wheel train set within a circular rotating carriage with pierced plates which revolves once an hour via a 'walking' eight leaf pinion around a fixed centre wheel, the drive provided by a large standing barrel containing long mainspring mounted on the backplate with winding turn to the rear, the movement frontplate pierced to reveal the rotating carriage within applied paper Roman numeral chapter ring and with monogram trademark incorporating inscription PAT. MAY 21 1878 to lower margin, the case with ring-turned handle to the cushion moulded top above bevel-glazed front door and side panels, on cavetto moulded base with rounded angles, 11cm (4.25ins) high excluding handle. The ingenious rotating carousel design for the movement of the current lot was devised from a patent submitted by D.A. Buck of Worcester, Massachusetts in 1878 with the intention to produce a reliable timekeeper from the least possible parts. The mechanism was first employed by Waterbury in their 'long wind watch' before being used in carriage timepieces (with a much larger spring barrel to increase the duration to eight-days) from the early 1880's. The design and layout of the this type of carriage timepiece (including train counts) is described (in great detail) in Allix, Charles and Bonnert, Peter CARRIAGE CLOCKS Their history and development pages 360-6. Condition report disclaimer