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The Makers' Makers |
Nicole, Nielsen & Co
It is Nicole & Capt’s keyless work that is most recognisable and yet even this seemingly simple design, shows differences and development worthy of attention. The mechanism is mounted on the upper plate of the watch and can be clearly seen when opening the watch back. The earliest type, as shown in the 1844 patent, has the large winding wheel operating the hand setting wheel in the centre of the plate by an intermediate wheel which is permanently attached to the setting wheel. It has one drawback that, when fully wound, the hands can only be set by turning them backwards. Later watches, almost certainly dating from 1855 when a provisional patent was taken out in the name of Adolphe’s nephew David L A Nicole, has the intermediate wheel attached to the winding wheel which overcame the problem. Fig 9. However, the existence of some rare variations suggest that some form of keyless work may have predated the 1844 patent.
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Fig 6: A simple ‘split-seconds’ chronograph watch in gold hunter case, retailed by E Beckmann, London & Sydney. Hallmarked 1861, casemaker AN (Adolphe Nicole). Signed enamel dial with the chronograph action in the offset seconds, the hands shown split. Blued-steel hands of typical ‘spade’ shape, the double spade hour hand as always used with a half-hunter case. 50 mm diameter. |
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Fig 7: The underdial chronograph work of the watch shown in Figure 6. Pushing the pin at 12 in the band allows the spring to engage the edge of the steel disc and pipe, on which is mounted the stop seconds hand. Under the disc is a small coiled spring which connects the two hands. The drawback of this system is that events of more than about 60 seconds cannot be timed, otherwise the spring gets fully tightened forcing the stopped hand to move, or the watch to stop! |
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Not covered in the patent, but as distinctive as the keyless work, are the gold and silver cases that hold the movements. Also made by Nicole & Capt ‘in house’ they were designed to be as fashionably slim as possible and this was achieved by doing away with the inner of two back covers, ‘dome’ being the correct English term. A single back cover was made to push ‘snap’ onto the band, as was the front bezel. However, some of Nicole’s customers were obviously not appreciative of this new style as standard English cases were also supplied by the firm - even these were admirably slim for the period.
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Fig 8: A chronograph watch with enamel dial of ‘regulator’ layout, retailed by the famous London firm of chronometer makers, John Poole. Gold openface case with standard shape of winding button, hallmarked 1874, casemaker AN (Adolphe Nicole). Signed enamel dial with centre-seconds chronograph hand operated by the button. Blued-steel hands. 49 mm diameter. |
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Fig 9: Movement of the chronograph watch in Figure 8, showing the standard Nicole & Capt three-quarter plate movement and keyless work. This is the improved type with the intermediate wheel permanently attached to the winding wheel. |
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Along with their distinctive cases, various designs of dials, for both plain and complicated work, show much innovation and beauty. Fig 8. Such beauty is today much underrated as enamel dial making, to the English standard, is one of the few truly lost arts.
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Fig 10: Underdial chronograph work clearly showing the castle wheel (at 9.30) and the heart shaped cam at the centre. As shown, the centre-seconds hand has been zeroed. |
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Fig 11. The bronze medal won by Nicole, Nielsen & Co at the Sydney Exhibition in 1879. 76 mm diameter. |
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