Tarts London Repousse

I've never mentioned this before, but I'm an art history nerd. In short, I took an intro to art history course in high school that sparked my passion for this other "old-people" interest. I vividly remember a class period during which my teacher flashed an image of a gold repousse plate of some sort then asking the students if we knew the term for such decoration. My hand shot up, and I quickly blurted out "repousse." From my days of drooling over antique watches, the term was a no-brainer. Since those days, I had always dreamed of acquiring a repousse pocket watch. Fortunately for me, that day came in the form of a "Dutch forgery."

Tarts pocket watches are considered "pseudo-London" pocket watches. These have been known as "Dutch-forgeries" rather than genuine watches from England. Tarts is the most prolific of these watches with John Wilter being another of these "pseudo-London" watches. These watches are usually of lesser quality  which is apparent if you were to compare pictures of this movement to actual English watches of the same time period - the finishing is much cruder with "choppy" edges rather than smooth and screws that look more industrial than refined. 

The overall condition of the watch is great but at the same time not so. The repousse case should be silver gilt, meaning that it should be gold plated overtop the sterling silver base. Most gilt watches have a brass base so that once a watch has been thoroughly worn through, the dull brown "interior" is in full view. This case being silver, however, I was still able to polish it nicely though not to excellent condition because it should be completely gilt and not silver. The inner case (not pictured) is of much better condition having its gold coat and all. I was able to confirm that the watch is silver gilt and not simply gilt because of the hallmarks within the inner case. 

Another neat feature of the watch is its champleve dial. The dial is made to have troughs and raised portions. Traditionally, champleve is combined with enamelling so that the enamel fits right into the carved out areas. What I have seen with watches, however, is that the troughs are left as is, unfilled. The dial is also of gold tone, but I was unable to test the gold content (I should really invest in a gold testing set...).