Featured 1900 lady's watch & brooch

When I was first trying to find info on this watch passed down in my wife's family, I didn't know about this site, or I would have posted it with questions then. But I was able to locate someone who knows about the company, so was able to find out more about it. I just thought I'd share it here. This ladies watch was bought around 1900 at Bigelow Kennard, a Boston Jeweler for my wife's 2nd great aunt. It's a Swiss watch made by Haas Neveux & Co., a high quality maker a step below Patek. Of all the heirlooms in my wife's family, I think this is my favorite. I think it was well liked by the owner as well, as it shows signs of frequent use.

Face of watch and front of jeweled brooch.


Back of watch and brooch.

Inside of back cover showing back of jewels (diamonds or maybe white sapphire...don't remember now).

Inner back cover.

The movement, bearing the Geneva Seal. Unfortunately, the point of the adjuster broke off somewhere along the watch's life.

 

Smallaxe, that is simply LOVELY!

 

Gorgeous. Needs one of those long necklaces with a slide & a 'dog clip' to keep it safe in case it slips from the fingers.

Great Grandmother's necklace question

 

Beautiful!

 

Perfect beauty, smallaxe. That shade of blue is always so stunning with gold, especially if it is shimmering guilloche enamel.

 

Sometimes on this site I click on a question and when when the photo appears, my mouth drops open because the item is so beautiful. Happened here!

Thank you for sharing this piece and the follow-up.

 

Glorious, just lovely.

 

Agree with every one else - simply gorgeous!

 

If I had that I wouldn't care if the watch worked or not! (jawdrop) I think the name on the dust cover is a retailer rather than a manufacturer, but I also don't know watches that well.

 

I love it! The guilloche enamel is luscious, and rose cut diamonds, too!
I have a small collection of guilloche ladies watches. They are addictive. I have a new one arriving from Ebay on Monday......

 

Zero watch value. Nice jewelry.

 

I sold just the case for a guilloche watch a few months ago. The watch itself was gone before I got it. Someone paid a lot more than I was expecting. They're pretty popular.

 

https://www.langantiques.com/green-enamel-pendant-watch-and-chain-by-bigelow-kennard-co-boston.html

 

@evelyb30 - it still does functions perfectly.
@Bronwen - thanks for the link, that is a beautiful watch, a little earlier, and bears similarities. I think however that the Lang Antiques write-up may have some inaccuracies. I'm pretty confident the movement is not American. The watch in the link, and the one we have both bear the Geneva Seal, and from what I have read of that, the seal is a quality seal for movements made in the Canton of Geneva. I'm pretty confident that Bigelow was a retailer of imported fine watches. Tiffany also is known to have retailed an occasional Haas Neveux watch. In Europe I suspect they were retailed directly by Haas Neveux in Geneva and Paris, which would explain the name on the inner cover, making it appear they were the retailer. From what I've found, they were the maker, so I think both these watches were made by Haas Neveux & Co., not Bigelow.

There is a person that has collected a database of Haas watches, which all bear a unique serial number. The number on that green watch and the number in ours put their dates around 1898 to 1900, compared to watches whose date is known, with the green watch at the earlier end of that and ours at the later end. For all the ones I've looked at from that database, it appears that each one is unique, although some may share the same movement design.

Since they were nearly in the league of Patek Philippe in their time, they seem to have some collector interest, and I imagine that having the original movement is important for those folks. They garner decent prices at auction, especially the ones with extra complications, or really extraordinary external design (some are quite elaborate). They also made some that were impossibly thin.

 

Oh my, that would be on display in my curio cabinet. Simply gorgeous!

 

Agreed. That is a simply stunning watch. I particularly love the enamel face and the color of the blue.