Albert Potter>>>

Hi,

The famed American watchmaker, Albert Potter, was known for his inventiveness and suberb execution and finish. This photo is taken from the Time Museum Historical Catalogue of American Pocket Watches by Donald Robert Hoke.

The movement is speculated to be an early Howard ebauche, has a straight line one minute tourbillon. It is key wind and key set and has a going barrel with Reed's maintaining power (the same Reed who patented the whiplash [swan's kneck] regulator), which is the same in function as Harrison's but applied to a going barrel.

Why maintaining power on a going barrel? Reed reversed the winding (left handed opposed to standard right handed in going barrels) as a safety feature, so if the mainspring should break, the train would not be damaged from the sudden explosion. In doing so, maintaining power was needed to keep power on the train during winding.

So, does the tourbillon arrangement seem familiar?

Cheers,

Curtis