Articles' list >>> The Alfred Cossidente Collection of Pocket Watches
Alfred Cossidente and his Collection
The collection of a passionate American enthusiast of the pocket timepieces, Alfred Cossidente, will make any collector start salivating. It comprises a great selection of elegant American and European pocket watches dating from the 1820s to the 1920s. The collection features some of the most prestigious names in horology.
Dr. Cossidente began the collection in the 1930s when he was just beginning his career of a doctor, charging $3 for a house call. In those days you could purchase a watch for the same amount of money. Dr. Cossidente was a member of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors for 60 years with the very early membership number of 342.
Nowadays, in the collection you will find pieces worth a few hundred dollars, as well as some exceptional watches estimated at $18,000 to $24,000, like for example a hand-engraved perpetual moonphase calendar watch in an 18 karat gold case created in 1895 by a Swiss maker called C.H. Meylan and signed "Tiffany & Co."
Alfred Cossidente passed away in 2003 at age of 100.
Potter’s watches in the Collection
The Alfred Cossidente collection highlights a watch made by one of the most prominent masters in the world of watchmaking, an American watchmaker, Albert H. Potter. The horologist designed and patented several unique mechanisms. Potter moved to Geneva in 1876 and lived there for the next 33 years. Potter is the only American watchmaker whose talent and flawless workmanship was ever acknowledged as an equal and even superior by the best Geneva watchmakers.
Potter only made a total of 600 watches, so watch connoisseurs will rarely meet these timepieces introduced for sale. A Potter gold hunting case chronometer watch created in 1880 has been estimated by the Doyle auction house to be worth $12,000 -$15,000, but it reached $22,705.
The Collection’s Pieces Offered for Sale
This remarkable collection, really fresh at the market, had been kept in storage for the past three decades and captured the meticulous attention of prominent collectors and dealers from around the world when it was offered for sale by Doyle in 2004. The bidders took an active part live in the salesroom as well as through the telephone lines and the Internet. The sale total surpassed the pre-auction estimate of about $152,000 to reach $291,161. Only one of the 49 lots offered at the action was not purchased.
A very rare gold hunting case pocket watch produced by A. Huguenin & Sons was among the most outstanding timepieces from the collection. It was purchased for a remarkable price of $45,410. Another highly successful lot was represented by a gold open-face perpetual moonphase calendar, minute repeater and split seconds chronograph made by C.H. Meylan that brought $29,875. A really rare gold openface watch by G.P. Reed of Boston, one of only 350 watches Reed created in his lifetime, was also strive for at the sale and was sold for an amazing $26,290. An A. Lange & Sohne gold hunting case minute repeater reached $16,730.
The second part of the collection introduced at Doyle highlighted a wonderful Albert H. Potter minute repeater, a rarely met Waltham Premier Maximus with Arabic numbers, placed in the original box.
The timepieces from the treasury saved by Alfred Cossidente would embellish a collection of any passionate watch lover.
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