18 K Gold Quarter Hour Repeater Pocket Chronograph

by Louise
(Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

This 18K Gold Quarter Hour Repeater Pocket Chronograph bears no maker's mark although the movement has an engraving "No 102" enclosed within a sketch in the shape of a Swiss Cross. Presumably the watch was made in Switzerland and the inscription on the casing, in the French language, "CHRONOGRAPHE - Système breveté - REPETITION - Ancre ligne droite - 32 Rubis - Balancier Compensateur - No 5628 - SPIRAL BREGUET" was designed to lure the unaware buyer into thinking that the instrument was made by BREGUET.

This timepiece came to me through my late father, deceased in 1958, from my grandfather who died in 1933. I never knew my grandfather since I was born in 1945 and I have no idea how he obtained the watch originally.

Nevertheless, this "fake" timepiece still works without flaws today, despite no maintenance whatsoever over the last sixty years at least. My research over the Internet so far has failed to find an exact equivalent for the features of this 18K Gold Quarter Hour Repeater Chronograph:

• Spring activated dust cover release controlled by depressing the winding stem button positioned at the 3 o'clock mark;


• All-Or-Nothing Piece to engage the Quarter Hour Repeater;


• 32-ruby movement;


• single button to start, stop and reset-to-start the 300 seconds (5 mins.) chronograph;


• separate encapsulated seconds dial.

The pocket chronograph, without the bow and chain, weights in at 105 grams and measures 5 cms. in diameter by 2 cms. in thickness. The 18K Gold outer shell has a few bumps in it, accountable to the softness of the metal but none to impair the workings. The chronograph sweep hand is missing and would need replacing as would the bow and the chain.