Victor Athanase Pierret 19C ship’s clock - June, 2010

We were given a pair of clocks to find a home for. A local reclaimation shop wasn’t interested but I thought I’d do some research and put it on eBay. It generated lots of interest, alongside another wooden clock. Here’s what I wrote on eBay:

“I’ve done some amateur online research on this, not being a clock expert. The clock looks like it was designed to go on a ship bulkhead, and is well sealed against salt water. The 7.25” enamel face is marked ”Benzie Cowes”, who were and are “The Yachtman’s Jeweler”, based in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. I’ve contacted them, and they think it likely that the clock was sold by them.
The marking on the clock’s movement is VAP Breveté SGDC. The second half indicates that the ”patent” is not enforcable by the government (sans garantie du gouvernement). And it also indicates it’s from a French-speaking country. And the VAP looks likely to be the initials of Victor Athanase Pierret, a French clock maker 1806-1893, born in Bucy-les-Pierrepont, later moving to Paris to make clocks after an apprenticeship with Rolin. He exhibited in London in 1851 and wrote the book Horlogerie, outillage et mecanique in 1885.
So, working on the overlap of dates between Benzie of Cowes, and Victor’s lifespan, this clock was probably made between 1862 and 1893.
I’m guessing the metal is brass, but I don’t have a way of testing it.”