I am cutting the letter out of the newspaper now!

Nice watch Dave, BTW, H.Samuel is a large chain of Retail jewellers.
(petrol's also around £1.13 per litre now)!

Could I also offer a word of caution regarding hallmarks!
The only guaranteed date period any hallmark will give anyone, is the date that Any precious metal article was 'Assayed' - Not manufactured.

A casemaker can make a case, put his mark on it, and have it sit in a safe through generations of successors.
The Only legal requirement to have a precious metal article assayed(in the UK anyway) is if that article is to be retailed to Joe public.

Unless someone can come up with another casemaker using CH incursive, or a member of the same family generations further on, I'm still sticking with my original opinion of early / Mid 1800's for that case.
The movement is another matter, and could well have been cased up around the period Dick suggested.

Best regards

John