Description: Gilt brass, back wound, movement with virgule escapement (45.4mm, diameter). Hanging barrel Lépine caliber with center seconds (second type with pierced bridge for second and third wheel). The movement lacks the typical two plate construction and represents the third type of the hanging barrel ‘Lépine caliber’, the spring barrel featuring a ‘circular’ spring. The ‘A,R’ on the balance bridge table, readable from the balance bridge foot side, as in the intermediate versions between 1775 and 1780. Enameled copper dial signed ‘L’Epine’, minutes subdivided in 5th. New type of hidden case spring and has a ‘cuvette’ (dust cap) with the usual engraved instructions and ‘Lépine No. 237’.
Additional Info:
The decoration on the bridges and the main spring barrel are typical of the Geneva region, where the Ferney facility is situated. Moreover the dust cap is neither signed as ‘Horloger du Roy’ nor ‘Invent et fecit’ and the main manufacturing site ‘Paris’ is omitted as well. Latter observations as well as the unusually low production number speak for a production in Ferney.
The center seconds ‘complication’ got momentum after the horological break through of John Harrison’s precision watch. The fashion for precision watches swapped over to France some time later, towards 1775. These center seconds watches were not used as chronographs, but were used as (pseudo) – scientific observation watches by (hobby) – astronomers.
Antiquarian Horology 
