HENRI MOSER & CIE, “QUALITE TOBIAS” A 14K YELLOW GOLD HUNTING CASED KEYLESS LEVER POCKET WATCH, MADE FOR THE RUSSIAN MARKET



Details

CIRCA: 1900s
CASE NO: 76786
CASE MATERIAL: 14k yellow gold
CASE DIAMETER: 52 mm.
DIAL: White enamel
MOVEMENT: Manual, keyless
FUNCTIONS: Time-only
BOX: No
PAPERS: No
WITH: A gold chain


Lot Essay

The interior of the front cover of the present watch is hand-engraved with an inscription in Cyrillic dated 1921.
The ‘Russian Swiss’ company of Henry Moser & Cie was founded by Johann Heinrich Moser in Le Locle, Switzerland. The company was focused on producing watches for the lucrative Russian market. The company manufactured a variety of different pocket watches, including ‘Blondel’, ‘Robert’, ‘Lepin’, ‘Salter’ and ‘Tobias’. The products were named according to the specific kind of mechanism used. The name reflected the quality and value of the watch. For instance, a watch with only one inscription of “Hy Moser & Co” on the inside cover, without the company name, were of good quality and cost more. Of these, watches with inscriptions of the company name in Gothic script were considered to be of superior quality.