Gold Watch no. 46

Case: Dial: Movement: Provenance: 18?? - Potter, Geneve 2008 - Sotheby's, 23 Apr 2008, est $15-25,000, sold $28,000, "ALBERT H. POTTER & CO., GENEVA A FINE AND RARE GOLD HUNTING CASED POCKET CHRONOMETER CIRCA 1880 NO 46 • nickel movement, Guillaume-type bi-metallic compensation balance, pivoted detent escapement with Potter's patented bridge layout, blued steel helical hairspring, free-sprung regulator, jewels carried in gold screwed chatons, glazed cuvette • white enamel dial, Roman numerals, large subsidiary seconds, blued steel Breguet hands • 18k gold polished hinged case • case, dial and movement signed diameter 56mm. Albert H. Potter (1830-1908) was born in Saratoga County, New York and served his apprenticeship in Albany. In 1855, he established himself in New York City where he is known to have produced 35 high-grade movements of key wind lever and chronometer type. After spending 5 years in Cuba, and designing a quarter repeating and duplex watch, he returned to the United States and organized a watch company with his brother William Cleveland Potter. In 1876 he moved to Geneva where he produced approximately 600 watches including levers, chronometers, repeaters, tourbillons and perpetual calendars. His complicated watches sold for prices beginning at $250. Today, he is considered one of the greatest American watch makers of all time." 2020 - ebay #124013365327, $7,033, Michigan, "This Albert H. Potter Co pocket watch. is in good condition, but it is not in working condition. When doing research on a Albert H. Potter Watch Co, No. 46, that site indicated it was a 19th Century watch - and a chronometre. It does not indicate that it is gold, but it has the hallmark (picture taken) for Albert H. Potter & Co. Copied below is some information on the Albert H. Potter Company's history: Albert H. Potter (1836-1908)Albert H. Potter was born in Mechanicville, N.Y. in 1836. Potter completed his three-year apprenticeship with Wood & Foley in Albany in 1855 and subsequently opened a repair shop in New York. In addition to the repair work, he constructed about 35 three-quarter plate movements with lever or spring escapement, which he sold for 225-350 dollars. In 1861 Potter went to Cuba, where he stayed for five years, carrying out repairs and testing new construction methods. During this time he constructed a quarter-hour repeating mechanism and a kind of duplex escapement. Upon his return to New York, Potter received his first patent for an escapement in 1868 and soon moved to the western United States. He stayed briefly in Minneapolis and Milwaukee before finally settling in Chicago around 1870. In 1872, Potter founded Potter Brothers with his brother William Cleveland Potter; the company was dissolved in 1875, but W.C. Potter continued to run the business until his death. Before leaving the United States in 1875 to settle in Geneva (where he was to remain for 33 years until the end of his life), Albert filed several patents for compensatory riots and inhibition improvements. He transferred half of these rights to John H. McMillan in Chicago, who apparently was a partner of Potter in his first Swiss companies). During his time in Chicago, Potter had developed and built a pocket chronometer that can probably be considered his masterpiece. This chronometer was the prototype for several copies which he then built in Geneva, where he received his settlement permit on February 11, 1876. In an article in the Horological Journal of May 1882, Potter wrote that he had created construction drawings and working models for 14 different escapements.Diameter 52 mm, weight 135 g, circa 1876 movement no. 20,The watch comes in the depicted Box.Reference: Kathleen H. Pritchard Swiss Timepiece Makers 1775-1975 Page P-92 to P-94."