173 - [WATCHMAKING]. MOINET, Louis. New General Treatise on Watchmaking.

[WATCHMAKING]. MOINET, Louis. New General Treatise on Watchmaking. An important 19th-century treatise on watchmaking, illustrated with 70 steel-engraved plates. A fine copy, complete in two solidly bound volumes. Paris, Dunod, 1877. 2 volumes in-4, full red percaline by the publisher, smooth spine decorated with embossed fleurons, author’s name, title, and publisher in gilt letters, embossed decorative border on the covers, speckled edges (contemporary binding). VIII, 448 pp., 20 fold-out plates, followed by 2 unnumbered folios and 80 pp. (Les Monstres marins); 551 pp. and 204 pp., followed by 31 fold-out plates (numbered XXI through LI), then 19 fold-out plates (appendix), 1 repeated frontispiece. Bindings rubbed, with rare and faint foxing. Third edition, expanded with an appendix, of this landmark work of 19th-century watchmaking literature by Louis Moinet (1768–1853), inventor of the first chronograph in 1816 (the “tierce counter”) and an eminent watchmaker. This theoretical and practical manual encompasses the entirety of the knowledge of the era: a meticulous description of civil, marine, and astronomical clockmaking; the calculation of gear trains; balance wheel compensation; and a study of anchor and detent escapements. It is illustrated with 70 steel engravings (20 in Volume 1, 31 in Volume 2, and 19 in the appendix to Volume 2), depicting with extreme precision the mechanisms, escapements, gear trains, and watchmaking tools. This new edition includes the following title, bound at the end of Volume 1: LEDIEU, Alfred, and RODANET, Auguste-Hilarion. Sea Monsters: Description, Theory, and Disturbance (excerpt from *New Methods of Navigation*). Paris, Dunod, 1877. 80 pages, black-and-white illustrations in the text and as inserts. Published jointly by a French Navy engineer (Alfred Ledieu) and one of the greatest marine chronometrists and watchmakers of the late 19th century (Auguste-Hilarion Rodanet), this work is a seminal late 19th-century treatise on marine chronometry and high-precision regulation. A sturdy copy, complete with its plates in fine condition.