A silver half hunter pocket watch by C. Frodsham has smashed its auction estimate of £70 - £100 and sold for a whopping £1,914.00 (including fees). The alluring timepiece, sold alongside two other pocket watches, featured as Lot 227 in Fellows’ Online Watches & Watch Accessories sale, which ended on Monday 3rd August. The lot received over 50 bids and was one of the standout items in the auction.
Charles Frodsham (1810-1871), quickly established himself in the watch industry in the mid-19th century, working on chronometers. He went on to become vice chairman of the Horological Institute. His firm (Charles Frodsham & Co), designed this pocket watch nearly twenty years after Charles Frodsham’s death, with the pocket watch containing hallmarks for 1890. The magnificent timepiece features a signed keyless wind movement with a ratchet tooth lever escapement. The C. Frodsham pocket watch was sold alongside a silver open face pocket watch and a white metal full hunter pocket watch.
Fellows’ Online Watches & Watch Accessories timed auction on Monday 3rd August ran for a total of ten-and-a-half hours, with the first lot closing at 9am and the final lot ending at 7:30pm. Fellows has had incredible success with their timed, online-only auctions recently, with a timed auction of watches being a white glove sale in September 2019 and a timed watches auction receiving record registrants in April 2020. Fellows has a history for selling important Frodsham pieces. In 2016 a rare Frodsham campaign clock was bought at a Fellows auction by Charles Frodsham & Co. for £9,500.
Michael Jagiela, Senior Watch Specialist from Fellows Auctioneers, said: “I am ecstatic that there still seems to be a strong demand for historic pocket watches. This particular example by C. Frodsham was undoubtedly the highlight of our Online Watches & Watch Accessories auction and we are overwhelmed at the sheer volume of bids it received. We are currently accepting consignments of pocket watches for our upcoming auctions.”
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