Antique Huit Rubis Echappement A Cylindre Key Wind Pocket Watch

The pocket watch is UNTESTED! The watch case is 14kt gold and the escapement (guts) of the watch are mostly made of brass. The face of the watch is damaged as seen in the photos.

"Huit Rubis" translates to "Eight Rubies" and "Echappement A Cylindre" translates to "Cylinder Escapement" or "Cylinder Exhaust".

Essentially, rubies inside watch movements act as ball bearings and eliminate friction. Unless a new watch utilizes high-tech ceramic ball bearings in certain parts of a watch movement — mechanical movements utilize synthetic gemstones, predominantly rubies, as bearings instead of using metal bearings that need oiling.

The synthetic gems — typically rubies, but sometimes sapphires — eliminate the need for oiling and significantly reduce friction and wear and tear on the movement parts, enhancing the life of the movement. Sometimes, those rubies are visible via a transparent sapphire caseback, or via a skeleton movement where so much of the metal is pared away to allow viewing of the superb mechanisms.

Rubies have other added benefits to watchmakers, as well. Because they can withstand temperature changes without any reaction (unlike metal bearings) they offer higher stability. Synthetic rubies are generally created using aluminum and chromium oxide that are heated, fused and crystalized. They are not as valuable as genuine rubies, making them more affordable to use. This is especially important because a watch can have anywhere from a few rubies to dozens inside the movement.

Setting these minuscule jewels into their designated spots is no easy feat and watchmakers use microscopes and tweezers to accomplish the job. One of the nice things about using rubies — or, as some brands do– sapphires — in a watch movement is that when visible via a transparent caseback or a skeletonized movement, those rubies not only serve a practical purpose, but also make the piece look beautiful.

The cylinder escapement was invented in England by Thomas Tompion and others in around 1695, and perfected after Tompion's death by George Graham, one of Tompion's apprentices. The cylinder escapement was never widely embraced by English watchmakers.

The Swiss in contrast perfected the design of the cylinder escapement and produced millions of watches with it, right up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Although they gave good service to millions of customers, Swiss watches with cylinder escapements that were imported into England were usually at the cheaper end of the price scale. Consequently the cylinder escapement is usually looked upon rather contemptuously by watch collectors. It is capable of good timekeeping, but needs regular servicing, which is becoming more and more difficult as time goes on.

Swiss cylinder escapements are usually found in watches with Lépine calibres. These are named after Jean Antoine Lépine, a French watchmaker who created the modern slim form of watch with separate cocks and bridges in the eighteenth century.

The cylinder is always in contact with the escape wheel, causing sliding friction as the balance and cylinder turn. Without regular cleaning and oiling this will cause severe wear to the cylinder. Today it would be uneconomic to replace a worn or broken cylinder unless the watch was something very special, and the number of repairers who can replace a cylinder is small and dwindling.

The cylinder escapement is also called the horizontal escapement, in contrast to the vertical verge escapement that preceded it.

The horizontal escapement was invented in England, and was found by its frictional action during the state of rest of the train so nearly to counter-balance the variable impulse given by the spring, that even with the crude going–barrels the average performance of the watch was amazingly improved. English engineers had by experiment proved that friction was much less between different metals than between similar, therefore the watchmaker made the horizontal wheel of brass and his cylinder of steel. Meanwhile, public taste demanded flat watches, and the Swiss made the horizontal escapement of steel entirely, thereby sacrificing theory to demand. After a time it was found that, whereas the brass wheel destroyed the cylinder very quickly, the steel wheel hardly marked it in years of wear, clearly showing that even if there be a slight excess of that friction that retards motion, it is a less evil than the absolute wear of the machine itself. The Swiss were thus rewarded for studying the taste of the public by a large trade, and have made their country the home of the horizontal escapement."

The major problem with the brass escape wheel and steel cylinder combination used by English watchmakers was that the softer brass picked up particles of dust which embedded themselves into the surface of the escape wheel, turning it into a grinding wheel as it rubbed against the steel cylinder, thus wearing it away very quickly. The Swiss combination of steel wheel and steel cylinder didn't suffer nearly so much from this problem, although dust in the oil will still cause wear over the years. Because the cylinder escapement is a "frictional rest" escapement it should, in theory, be improved by reducing friction and therefore using a combination of brass and steel for the wheel and cylinder. However, in practice the friction of the cylinder is actually beneficial to timekeeping, because in a movement without a fusee, where the spring barrel called a "going barrel" drives the train directly, the friction evens out the torque from the mainspring.

The feature of the cylinder escapement that caused so much objection to English watchmakers is that the escape wheel is always held in contact with some part or other of the cylinder. The force of the main spring presses the escape wheel against the cylinder causing friction. But this objectionable friction is also the secret of the unexpectedly good timekeeping of the cylinder escapement. When the main spring is fully or near fully wound and the force it exerts is at it highest, the friction in the escapement is also at its highest. As the main spring runs down it produces less force and the friction in the escapement decreases.

The combination of high friction with high spring torque, and low friction with low spring torque, results in a greater consistency of amplitude of the balance from when the mainspring is fully wound to when it is run down. If the balance and spring were perfectly isochronous this wouldn't matter because the period in big and small amplitudes would be the same, but perfection is difficult to achieve, especially with eighteenth and nineteenth spring technology, and the greater consistency of amplitudes resulted in a rate that was more constant than might have been expected. The combination of steel on steel used by the Swiss produced a superior timekeeping performance to the lower friction combination of brass on steel favored by the English watchmakers for theoretical reasons.

English watchmakers couldn't get over their view that using steel on steel was bad engineering, so when they did make cylinder escapements they used brass escape wheels and then, observing that these wore out quickly, condemned the cylinder escapement. The Swiss however were not so purist and observing that steel on steel worked very well, even if it shouldn't in theory, made millions of watches with cylinder escapements, which they sold cheaply to customers who didn't know or care about the difference between a cylinder and a lever escapement and were happy to get a cheap watch that kept time well.

Although the performance and longevity of Swiss made cylinder escapements with steel escape wheels and steel cylinders was better than English ones with brass escape wheels and steel cylinders, the difference is relative rather than absolute; the cylinder wears more slowly with the Swiss steel escape wheel, but it still does wear as the oil picks up dust and turns to a fine grinding paste. They were also usually at the lower end of the price scale so the train pivots are not jeweled. Jewels in watch movements are not just there to look pretty, or even to reduce friction; their principal role is to provide a hard bearing surface the reduces wear. An watch without train jewels needs servicing more than one with jewels if wear of the bearings in the plates is going to be kept within acceptable limits. The only way to delay the inevitable is to have the movement regularly serviced, when it will be cleaned to remove the old mixture of oil and dust and lubricated with fresh clean oil.

The first watchmaker to make great use of the cylinder escapement was Jean Antoine Lépine who used them in watches that were, at the time, sensationally thin. With his designs Lépine created the modern watch and deserves to be far better known than he is. Lépine's designs formed the basis for the vast majority of French and Swiss watch production in the late eighteenth and through the nineteenth century.

The great Abraham Louis Breguet overcame the problem of wear in the cylinder escapement to a very great extent by making his cylinders of ruby, but don't expect to find such an exotic device in a cheap Swiss watch.


In general, all items may or may not have been damaged by water, smoke, mold, insects, mishandling, animal chewing, cracks, nicks, dings, dents, rips, marks, stains, divots, waviness, creases, scratches, etc.

***Please look at the attached photos for size and condition. Photos are part of the description representing the condition report and can be used for authentication prior to the sale date. We urge bidder's to view all attached photos in detail. All items are sold "AS IS". Thank you for your interest and good luck bidding.

Notes: Please inspect all photos carefully before bidding. Thank you for your interest and good luck bidding.

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Mike Marsullo | (860) 997-3332 | fil14fy@gmail.com

Pickup Details

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Private Residence

Torrington, CT 06790

When to Pickup

Saturday, 8/13, 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

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