Zenith, Neuchatel, Switzerland.

Circa 1925/1926

£18,000

A very fine 8-day mahogany and glass seconds wall regulator. Made in 1925/1926 The case is constructed with a solid mahogany backboard and laminated mahogany split ‘stable door' with the original bent glass. The 8-inch silvered dial is signed ZENITH No. 55 within a brass bezel, Arabic hour, minute and second numerals all with fine quality blued steel hands, the movement is wound through the hour hand arbor with the original crank key. The frosted gilt-brass movement has four cylindrical pillars with steel backplate screws, high quality wheel train with Graham-type deadbeat escapement with adjustable jewelled pallets, original pulley and brass-cased weight, the invar pendulum has a calibrated rating nut to the base of the cylindrical bob. 4 foot 4 inches (135cm.) high According to Zenith's records approximately 250 of these high-quality regulators were made between 1923 and 1950; there are three working examples on display at the Zenith Museum in Neuchatel. According to Zenith's records these high-quality wall regulators were mostly constructed and finished by Charles Rosat (d.1927), the head of the chronometrie workshops; Rosat worked with his own team of Zenith horologists in workshops at his home in the town of Boudrie, close to Neuchatel where these fine regulators were constructed and ‘finished'. Many of these clocks were made with auto-wind systems and most were made as master clocks sending electrical impulses to slave dials. The present clock however is thought to have originally been made as a workshop regulator rather than a master clock with auto-wind. My thanks to Laurence Bodenmann, curator of horology at the Zenith Museum, Neuchatel, for her kind and generous help with this catalogue entry.