As some of you know, I am collecting pocketwatches, IWC only.
Far from saying that my collection is a museum collection but I am proud to
have found some nice and rare pieces over time.
Some of the pocketwatches are common, easy to find on the market, sometimes in
better condition than mine, but some I have are gems.
So in these crazy times, as the museum in Schaffhausen is closed, why not open
one here on the forum.
As long as the museum is closed, I will post here daily a pocketwatch from my
collection.
I hope I don't run out of pieces before the virus is beaten. Fingers crossed
for all of us.
I will post them in a random order, with some comments, feel free to join.
Keep safe all.
DAY 43, the ref 5420 , Sarabaeus Fuchs.
Today, a rare piece again, not much info on the forum either to be found.
It is the ref 5420, also named the Scarabaeus Fuchs. It comes from the
eighties when IWC took their best developed calibres and made a revival of the
pocketwatches. Some came with special complcations as a thermometer, some had
an astrological calendar and one was designed by an artist.
Some pocketwatches had the price of a year's salary of a Geman employee.
So for day 43, the Scarabaeus Fuchs, Scarabeus from the scarab on the case.
The ref 5420 Scarabaeus Fuchs was a limited edition, it came in yellow gold
with a gilded dial , limited to 250 pieces, and in Sterling silver, silver
dial, in a limited edition of 1000.
This was info from an IWC source on the German IWC forum. But this is where it
got strange, inside the cover of the silver one, there is a limitation of
x/5000.
And we see also some silver ones that are gilded, they even have the stamp
Plaque G10 on it. This was unknown to me and I never saw it in official
statements.
There were circa 20 sold in gold and something around 100 in silver ( some
other sources say around 250 sold in silver ). How many of these were gilded
cases ? I have no idea.
Something to look for in the books.
The watch itself is a large silver, heavy case, 56mm. The calibre is 16 ¾
lignes, and 4,43 mm in height. The movement itself is gilded and hand
engraved.
This pocketwatch is really a piece of art, the design was done by the artist
Ernst Fuchs, a painter and sculptor ( who also made the design for the Janus
clock by IWC ).
The watch comes is a wooden box and with a booklet about the artist and
pictures behind the scene when developing the watch.
The wooden case is made of the root of a 400 year old walnut tree, each box
has a different pattern. The boxes came with red or blue velvet inside.
The Scarabaeus Fuchs has the cal 982F inside ( F stands for the decoration
pattern, I was told )
I looked into an old catalogue from 1986 for a price comparison ; the 18K was
34400 DM, the silver case had a price tag of 12450 DM.
To give an idea, in the same catalogue we had the Ocean 2000, ref 3500 for
4100 DM or the Steel ingenieur auto, ref 3506 for 3950 DM.
The watch hasn't a crystal or plexi on the dial
The booklet with all the info on the artist and the making of the watch.
3 different cases for the Scarabaeus
The stamp of a gilded silver case ( the plaque was removed )
A limitation of 5000 ? I blurred out the serial number.
From the booklet
The
Finally,
