Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

The precursor to the Woolley & Wallis Fine Jewellery sale on October 25 is a single-owner catalogue devoted to the collection of Jean Louis Chameroy (1946-2020).

Serpent jewels, symbols of eternity and exoticism, are ever popular and two good examples are on offer this autumn.

This ‘ferris wheel’ timepiece, thermometer and barometer compendium is a novel type that was first made in France in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

From clothing career to clock dealer brilliance, Jonathan Carter specialised in the golden age of English clockmaking and set up the leading firm Carter-Marsh

This is one of the very first batch of standard barographs produced by Richard Frères of Paris.

Classic examples of distinctive porcelain take four-figure sums in Gloucestershire

Interest in wireless telegraphy, that was piqued when Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent a message from Poldhu, Cornwall to St John’s, Newfoundland in 1910, prompted many amateurs to build and develop their own sets based on the ‘Coherer’ principle for sending and receiving Morse code.

The best-known type of Maori jewellery is the pounamu (greenstone) hei tiki pendants, the figural carvings representing ‘the first man’ that were typically worn by women.

This 15th century gold ring, set with a rhomb-shaped table-cut sapphire, is engraved with lilies and other flowers issuing from a crescent bowl.

This brass cased mining aneroid pocket barometer altimeter, c.1885, was almost certainly a one-off order or commission.

Needing work but with an impeccable pedigree, this striking drop-dial wall clock topped the day at Bellmans (25% buyer’s premium).

A spate of jewellery-related crimes was reported in the last month, sparking further concerns for those in the trade.

A Camden Passage jewellery dealer suffered a devastating loss of his entire stock after a theft from his stand at the London market.

Among the busiest stands on the opening day of The Treasure House Fair that ran at the Chelsea Hospital site from June 22-26 was that of horology dealership Carter Marsh.