In response to Mark Singleton's comments [181113 MMD] on the musical
box signed by Lecoultre-Reymond, and the statement that Reymond-Nicole
worked within the same building 'as both the François' may or may not
be relevant to solving the riddle of the name Lecoultre-Reymond.

Ted Brown and I worked for many years with the late H.A.V. (Anthony)
Bulleid.  He was my technical editor for The Nicole Factor in Mechanical
Music and assisted me enormously on The Music Makers of Switzerland.
In Chapter 4 of the Nicole Factor: The Products of Reymond Nicole,
the collaboration resulted in some changes to the Nicole dateline.
It also included evidence suggesting how Reymond-Nicole continued
after the retirement of his father-in-law François Nicole.

In the Music Makers, we were able to differentiate between the two
Lecoultre clans, David Lecoultre and his brother Henri-Joseph Lecoultre.
Both were of the Lecoultre/Golay branch and not directly related to but
probably distant cousins of Françoise Lecoultre of the Lecoultre-Piguet
branch, into which Reymond married.  In doing so, he adopted his wife's
family in accordance with the custom of the time to become
Reymond-Nicole.

When Reymond-Nicole's father-in-law retired, evidence, which is too
long to long to repeat here, indicates that Reymond carried on working
in collaboration with two others, Falconnet and one of the Lecoultres
(Chapter 4 of the Nicole Factor).  It also seems certain that, when
François Nicole died, Reymond-Nicole dropped the family name and
reverted to the name Reymond.

François Nicole's true successors were his cousins who lived and worked
just a short distance away.  The late Luuk Goldhoorn and Olin Tillotson
provided evidence to show that these cousins, David-Elie Nicole and
brother Pierre-Moise Nicole, had an early collaboration with Françoise
Nicole but became independent after his retirement.  The conclusion
is that there was some sort of frisson between Reymond-Nicole and the
Nicole cousins that led to Reymond working independently.  Of the three
Lecoultres, it is almost certain to have been Henri-Joseph Lecoultre
and not his brother David Lecoultre or the F. Lecoultre frères of the
Piguet branch.

To summarise, Chapter 4 of the Nicole Factor has a proposed dating
chart for Reymond's collaboration with Falconnet and 'Lecoultre'
(i.e., Henri-Joseph).  I would appreciate the serial number of the
Lecoultre-Reymond musical box to see if it fits with the evidence so
far obtained.

Ted Brown and I are currently reviewing the whole of the Bulleid dating
Charts with a view to updating his work where appropriate, plus adding
some new charts for other makers.

Paul Bellamy