Description

For sale is a rare and beautifully preserved French antique pocket watch by Glafort of Périgueux, dating from approximately 1820 to 1835. The watch is in good running order and presents with the quiet authority of a piece made by a master craftsman at the height of the early nineteenth-century French horological tradition: a guilloché silver case, a guilloché silver dial, blued steel moon-tipped hands, a jewelled cylinder escapement, and a jumping hour complication that places it among the more unusual and collectible French pocket watches of its era.

Glafort à Périgueux – French Provincial Watchmaking at Its Finest

Périgueux, the ancient capital of the Périgord in south-west France, was home to a tradition of skilled artisan watchmakers and jewellers who served the prosperous bourgeoisie and landed gentry of the Dordogne region. Glafort was among the established horologists working from the town during the early nineteenth century, producing finely made timepieces of the quality expected by a discerning provincial clientele. The movement of this watch, signed on the gilt brass plate and numbered 3776, speaks to a workshop operating at a high standard: the cylinder escapement is jewelled in rubies, the finish is careful and unhurried, and the choice to incorporate the jumping hour complication indicates a maker confident enough in his craft to undertake one of the more mechanically demanding complications of the period.

The Jumping Hour – A Revolution in Legibility

The jumping hour is the most revolutionary complication made in France in the 19th century. Rather than reading the hour from a conventional hand sweeping a chapter ring, the owner of this watch reads it directly from a window, a rectangular aperture cut into the dial at 12 o’clock, through which a disc bearing the Arabic numeral of the current hour is visible. At the turn of each hour, the disc advances instantly and decisively: the old numeral disappears, and the new one snaps into place with the satisfying precision of a well-executed mechanical idea.

Abandoning the traditional hand in favour of a window was a revolution in 1830. By abruptly changing the time by a jump every 60 minutes, the mechanism simply made it easy to tell the time. It is a complication born of practicality as much as ingenuity, a response to the rapid democratisation of the pocket watch during the 1820s, when legibility at a glance became as important as mechanical sophistication. Today, these antique jumping hour watches are highly prized by collectors precisely for the combination of mechanical interest and visual modernity that makes them feel, against all expectations, remarkably contemporary.

The Dial and Case

The dial is guilloché silver, engine-turned in concentric circles that catch the light with a gentle, shifting radiance quite unlike the flat silver of a plain dial. The minute track runs as a narrow chapter ring at the outer edge, marked with Arabic numerals at the five-minute intervals, with fine divisions between. The jumping hour aperture at 12 o’clock is framed cleanly in black. There are no unnecessary flourishes; the composition is one of studied restraint. The blued steel hands are of the Breguet moon-tipped style, slender, elegant, and entirely of the period.

The case is silver throughout, with the back engine-turned in a fine circular guilloché pattern that mirrors the dial. The overall effect, when held, is of a unified object: dial, case, and movement conceived as a whole rather than assembled from parts.

Specifications

Brand: Glafort

Model: Jumping Hour Pocket Watch – Cylinder Escapement

Reference: Movement No. 3776

Year: circa 1820–1835

Case material: Silver

Case diameter: approx. 48–52 mm

Dial: Guilloché silver dial with Arabic minute track and jumping hour aperture at 12 o’clock

Hands: Blued steel Breguet moon-tipped style

Movement: Manual winding – cylinder escapement, jewelled in rubies, gilt brass plate

Complication: Jumping hour (heures sautantes) – hour displayed via aperture window

Condition: Good condition with minor age-related marks consistent with two centuries of age

Accessories: Watch only (no box or papers)

Warranty: 1 year warranty

Collector Appeal

Early nineteenth-century French pocket watches with the jumping hour complication are genuinely uncommon, particularly in silver, with the original movement running, the dial intact, and the complication functioning correctly. Most survive in imperfect or non-running states; a piece of this quality and completeness represents the kind of find that presents itself rarely. The guilloché dial and case, the jewelled cylinder movement, and the Périgueux provenance together make this a watch of considerable horological interest.

Availability

This vintage day-date automatic watch is available through Vintage Times Amsterdam.

For further information or high-resolution images, please feel free to contact:

Vintage Times

Vintage Times Amsterdam is a small watch boutique who mainly deals online and with a select group of private collectors. We are constantly looking for rare vintage timepieces and try to present the best condition available. Please don’t hesitate to get in contact for more information about this watch or other timepieces from our collection. We ship worldwide and also welcome you for a visit at our office in Amsterdam.

Vintage Times

email: [email protected]

tel / app: +31 6 4 1111 044