The History of the Self-Winding Watch 1770-1931 by Chapuis, Alfred & Eugene Jaquet (English Adaptation by R. Savare Grandvoinet) - 1956

Neuchatel, Switzerland: Edition du Griffon. Very Good+. 1956. 1st English Edition; 1st Printing. Hardcover. B&W Illustrations; First Eglish Edition / First Revised Edition. This book is in Very Good+ condition and is lacking the accompanying dust jacket. The book and its contents are in clean, bright condition. The bottom front corner of the book cover has some rubbing and a small spot of fraying. There is some beginning rubbing / fraying to the top corners of the book cover as well. The text pages are clean and bright. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs, black and white tipped in plates and full-color tipped in plates Chapters include: The Precursors, Abraham-Louis Perrelet, Hubert Sarton, Abraham-Louis Breguet, Louis Recordon and his Patent, Jacquet-Droz & Leschot, James Cox, Of other makers and their watches, 1780-1825, Pedometers, Self-winding watches after 1830, The Advent of the Self-winding wristled watch. "A new star has risen in the horologists' firmament: the watch without winding stem, the self-winding watch. Its advent was announced at the end of 1929 by Henri Clouzot, then Director of the Galliera Museum, and organiser of the 1923 Breguet Exhibition in Paris, in an article entitled - L'Art precieux de notre temps. - Referring to the XIX century historians of watchcraft, Clouzot specified that the oldest known, patented self-winding watch was that of Louis Recordon, a watchmaker of Swiss origin then established in England; his patent dates back to 1780 and Recordon was therefore considered as the chief inventor of the timepieces originally known as - perpetual watches -." In his article, however, Clouzot referred to certain indications which seemed to show that the principle of this type of watch had already then been known for over two centuries." (from Wikipedia) .