American Waltham Watch Co., A probably unique minute repeating split second chronograph watch with register in associated gold-filled hunting case, no. 3793206, circa 1888

nickel lever movement, 16 size, 17 jewels, some jewels carried in screwed gold chatons, bi-metallic compensation balance, Breguet hairspring, micrometer regulator, slide repeat, glazed cuvette, white enamel dial, roman numerals, two subsidiary dials indicating constant seconds and 60 minute register, reconstructed 18k gold-filled engine-turned case with open cartouche on the front lid, dial and movement signed, case stamped with maker's mark R.R.F. & Co, accompanied by a copy of Hoke, The Time Museum Catalogue of American Pocket Watches. 

Time Museum Inventory No. 1418

The Waltham Watch Company remains the only American company to produce a repeating watch, though employing Swiss design and parts by such makers as George Aubert of Vaud and Henri Onesime Stauffer of Neuchâtel.  Many of the later complicated pieces may have been further finished by C.H. Meylan.  The mechanisms, after having been acquired from abroad, were then fitted to the movements by the New York agents for Waltham, the Gold Case Factory of Robbins and Appleton.  The first Waltham five-minute repeating watches came in to existence between the years of 1886 and 1887. 

Though Waltham seems to have produced seven different runs of repeaters, the present lot seems to be a unique example of a minute repeater falling in the production run of group six, #3793001-3793400.  This group represents the beginning of Waltham's collaboration with Meylan.  For further discussion of Waltham repeaters see Harrold, "American Watchmaking", in the NAWCC Bulletin Supplement, pp. 101-104.