An onyx clock given to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Pierre Cartier will be auctioned and is expected to fetch up to $1 million (€710,000).The clock, containing time zones for locations important to Allied forces in World War II, is being offered for sale on Dec. 4 at Sotheby's Manhattan auction house.
Cartier sent Roosevelt the gift on December 20th, 1943 with a letter in which the French jeweler wrote, “My countrymen are particularly grateful for what you are doing for them, and we realize that it will be thanks to your efforts and marvelous leadership that France will again live.” Cartier continues, “I have thought that a clock marking the time in the different parts of the earth where the glorious American armies are fighting – a clock which therefore will mark the hour of victory – might be a useful addition to your desk.”
President Roosevelt, in his letter from the White House thanking Pierre Cartier, replies, “And, too, I am intrigued by the differing times of world capitals. Soon, very soon, I hope that Paris will resume her place among the free capitals of the world. All of us are doing our best toward that end.”
The letters are not part of the auction and are housed in the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Herald Tribune via Luxist
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