Sotheby?s London, July 6 2017

Sold for £464,750 

Sotheby?s completed its four-part sales series entitled ?The Celebration of the English Watch? with this 78-lot auction that was fittingly rounded-off with the sale of a piece made by George Daniels for the noted collector Edward Hornby, whose interest in horology began in 1935 with the purchase of a Breguet for £40.
Back then, the community of UK-based Breguet owners was nothing if not a small one, and one of its lynchpins was the late Sam Clutton whose extensive collection was maintained by Daniels.
Clutton inevitably introduced Hornby to Daniels, and in his book ?The Adventures of Edward Hornby? the latter recalled how Daniels subsequently ?chose? him to be one of the buyers of the first six watches he had planned to make from scratch – later informing Hornby that it would cost ?a great deal? but that he was ?going to have one, just the same.? The watch in question turned out to be this twin-barrel, spring detent chronometer with retrograde hour, one minute tourbillon which Hornby bought from Daniels in 1971 before acquiring a double-wheel chronometer four years later.
Hornby sold the majority of his watch collection in 1978, but kept both Daniels watches until his death. The tourbillon subsequently appeared at Sotheby?s in 1999.
In the sale catalogue Daniels himself recalled a unique timing trial conducted by Hornby, writing: ?Concerned that the tourbillon could not equal his new quartz watch, he ran the ...