In the quest for precision chronometry in a mechanical watch, perhaps no other component is as crucial as the escapement – often consisting of an escape wheel and lever that engage with the oscillating organ. The history of watchmaking recounts many an attempt at inventing a better-performing escapement, with some attempts naturally more successful than others.

By the 20th century, the watch industry had settled upon the Swiss lever escapement, which has proven itself to be a reasonably solid performer and crucially, one fit for mass production. However, in the latter decades of the century, one English watchmaker attempted to challenge the industry status quo. In 1974, George Daniels invented the “co-axial escapement”, a seemingly novel and practical escapement of his own design that was conceived as an functionally superior alternative to the Swiss lever escapement. Daniels’ invention fulfilled his ambition, at least in part, when it was sold to Omega and then successfully industrialised starting in 1999; today it is found in hundreds of thousands of movements that Omega produces each year.

The latest iteration of the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch is kitted out with the co-axial escapement

With the merits of the co-axial escapement having been proven in part by its large-scale adoption, my aim here is not to examine its intrinsic qualities, but rather delve into its development. Specifically I will explore the fact that the co-axial escapement might not be an entirely new design, but rather a surprisingly direct evolution from one of history’s more obscure escapements, the Fasoldt chronometer escapement, which dates to the early 1860s.

Solving an age-old problem, from Breguet to Daniels

Put simply, any mechanical timekeeper requires an escapement to regulate the energy discharged by the mainspring. An escapement operates like a stepper mechanism: the escapement locks and unlocks the gear train’s movement at a set pace. Most escapements consist of an escape wheel that’s blocked by a lever and released periodically by an oscillating balance wheel affixed to a coiled hairspring.

Driven by the mainspring and its associated going train, the escape wheel powers – directly or indirectly – the oscillating motion of the balance wheel. It can thus be concluded that the escapement performs two functions at the same time: it determines the rate of mainspring discharge while maintaining the oscillations of the balance wheel.

For the last century, the watch industry has relied almost exclusively on the Swiss lever escapement to keep its watches ticking. While being relatively easy to produce and adjust in mass production, the Swiss lever escapement relies on a generous sliding action that delivers an indirect impulse to the balance.

This sliding motion creates sliding friction, which tends to degrade a moving part relatively quickly. In a Swiss lever escapement, the moving parts subjected to sliding friction are the jewel pallets of the lever and the teeth of the escape wheel. But for optimum performance, the friction coefficient between the two sliding surfaces should be minimal. The natural and most widely embraced solution to is to protect such surfaces with another substance that acts a buffer. Various lubricants are thus used for the escapement, ever since the invention of the clock.

Two examples of the Swiss lever escapement that both function on the same mechanical principles: the back and forth swing of the pallet lever locks and unlocks the gear train

Lubricants, however, deteriorate over time. The synthetic lubricants in use today are more long-lasting than the natural oils used in Abraham-Louis Breguet’s time that tended to clump up, resulting in them acting counter to their intended purpose and causing premature wear to the movement. But even in modern watchmaking the best lubricants don’t last forever, so a perfect escapement would require either an everlasting oil or simply eliminating lubricants altogether in a “dry” escapement that would not require lubrication by design. Being a watchmaker rather than a chemist, Daniels naturally chose the latter solution in his quest for the perfect escapement.

For almost two centuries, the oil-less escapement of choice in high grade chronometers was the detent escapement, also known as a chronometer escapement due to its preferred use in top-grade timepieces. While too fragile and unreliable for use in wristwatches, the detent escapement personified the purest concept of the escapement as it functions by providing direct impulse to the balance wheel in a virtually frictionless manner, with the slightest tangential push. In other words, the detent escapement doesn’t create sliding friction in its operation.

But the major shortcoming of the detent escapement is the fact that the impulse is provided in a single direction, once per oscillation in other words, as opposed to twice per oscillation with each alternation of the balance in a lever escapement. As a result, the detent escapement isn’t self-starting by design. As a result, should the balance be stopped, either accidentally or with intent, a detent escapement cannot not start again on its own and the timepiece requires gently shaking to initiate oscillation of the balance.

Moreover, the detent piece stopping the escape wheel can be easily disturbed by shocks, leading to premature unlocking of the escape wheel. Incidentally, the escapement’s name is derived from this device that detains the escape wheel (detent is French for “detain”) during the balance wheel’s supplementary arc. Generally, safety rollers can’t be employed in such an escapement, allowing for no meaningful solution to these problems.

Daniels used the detent escapement in his early pocket watches, but recognised the weaknesses that made it unsuitable for wider use, especially in wristwatches. To this day, the detent escapement has never been successfully adopted for large-scale production and remains an esoteric feature found in more artisanal watches.

The detent escapement found in Raul Pages RP1, one such artisanal watch. Image – Raul Pages

At the request of a client who commissioned a watch with an “extraordinary escapement”, Daniels turned to his experience as a Breguet scholar and drew inspiration from one of Breguet’s less-known (at the time) inventions, the échappement naturel, or “natural escapement”.

Breguet’s natural escapement involved two detent-like escape wheels arranged in a mirrored layout, both governed by a pivoted detent. Each escape wheel was made up of two layers, one the actual escape wheel with ratchet-like teeth and just below anther gear with a larger circumference.

The two escape wheel assemblies were joined through the meshing of their lower, wider gears. One of the escape wheels also featured a traditional escape pinion that engaged the rest of the gear train. Driven by the mainspring, the first escape wheel engaged the second, which spun at an a speed theoretically equal to the speed of the first.

For clarity, I present F.P. Journe’s patent for its own natural escapement, a modern, yet highly faithful, take on the échappement naturel. In fig. 1 we can observe the two large escape wheels, each with its own wider driving gear underneath (marked 2 and 3 in the drawing).

Fig. 1: A modern interpretation of Breguet’s natural escapement that is surprisingly close to the original in execution. Image – Patent EP 2 487 546 A1, Montres Journe SA

Breguet’s invention was essentially an escapement that impulsed the balance wheel in the same advantageous manner as the detent escapement – without sliding friction – but it did so twice an oscillation, with each escape wheel delivering an impulse once an alternation.

The main issues with Breguet’s natural escapement lay in the gearing that drove the second escape wheel. By design, when the primary escape wheel was locked by the detent, the second was free of any load and under no tension from the barrel. This, in conjunction with imperfect teeth profiles resulted in play within the meshing of the second escape wheel.

This unwanted radial play caused energy loss as well as unequal impulses. Equally, the friction generated between the two meshing gears proved to be substantial. Add to that the inertial losses caused by the second escape wheel with play in its meshing, the efficiency gains of the escapement design were in practice overcome by the limits of manufacturing at the time. Even after a number of tweaks, Breguet eventually dropped the idea altogether and shifted his focus to the lever escapement.

Over a century later, Daniels solved the problems faced by Breguet by removing the meshing gears between the twin escape wheels, thus rendering them independent (fig. 2). He linked the second escape wheel to a secondary gear train that mirrored the first. The two gear trains converged near the balance wheel and were synchronised by a type of pivoted detent that alternately locked and unlocked each escape wheel, effectively acting on both escape wheels.

Fig. 2: A 1990 sketch showing the final iteration of Daniels’ double-wheel escapement. Image – Sotheby’s

The result was his double-wheel escapement – most famously found in the Space Traveller pocket watch – that delivered highly satisfactory timekeeping. Daniels himself recounted in his memoirs a timepiece equipped with this escapement deviated by a mere second over the course of one month.

The merits of Breguet’s natural escapement meant that Daniels was not the only watchmaker to build on the idea. In the 21st century it has been taken even further thanks to modern technology, Ulysse Nardin for instance was the first watchmaker to use silicon in a mechanical movement in the form of twin silicon escape wheels.

While he was pleased with his feat, Daniels didn’t further develop the independent double-wheel escapement because he knew it was difficult, if not impossible, for the design to be produced on a large scale. But the experience he gained while tinkering with the natural escapement seemed to have left a lasting impression on him. It was undoubtedly here that Daniels observed first-hand the superior performance of a low-friction, double-impulse escapement in real-life testing. Unsurprisingly, he would go on to retain almost exactly the same balance roller design in the co-axial, but with only one impulse pallet instead of two.

Fasoldt’s way

Born in the German city of Dresden, Charles Fasoldt (1819 – 1889) was watch- and clockmaker who emigrated to America and eventually set up shop in Albany, New York. He preoccupied himself with a diversity of timekeepers ranging from tower clocks to precision pocket chronometers. Among other things, he is credited with inventing a large clock escapement and a smaller escapement for use in pocket watches.

But it is his invention described in American patent no. 46’652 dated March 7, 1865 that is most significant. Simply titled “C. Fasoldt, Chronometer”, it speaks of a “new and Improved Escapement for Chronometers”. The patent further details the escapement with four drawings, three of which show the escapement in the different stages of impulsing and locking (fig. 3).

Fasoldt’s escapement is composed of two escape wheels mounted co-axially, a three-pallet lever, and a balance roller. The lever is held in place by a jewelled, finger bridge and banks on two pins, in a manner similar to that in a conventional Swiss lever escapement. Although the patent drawings omit the safety roller and pin stemming from the fork, Fasoldt’s escapement was equipped with both.

A Charles Fasoldt pocket watch no. 353 from 1870 featuring his patented double wheel chronometer escapement that sold at Sotheby’s in 2019. Image – Sotheby’s

Notably, Fasoldt’s invention is also a type of duplex escapement – the Fasoldt escapement was among the first to incorporate twin, stacked escape wheels mounted co-axially, and he was most certainly the first to have used a three-pallet lever.

Invented in the early 18th entry, the aforementioned duplex escapement was the first to feature an escape wheel with two levels of teeth. Some iterations of the duplex escapement replaced one wheel with raised pillars in an effort to lower the unwanted inertia. Curiously, the latest iteration of the co-axial escapement developed by Daniels’ protege Roger W. Smith’s makes use of the same artifice, replacing one escape wheel with pillars, resulting in a co-axial escapement with a single escape wheel.

While satisfactory for its era, the duplex escapement is not effective or reliable because it relies heavily on prolonged direct contact with the balance arbour, which leads to frictional rest. Despite not the most excellent of timekeepers, the duplex escapement was the first to propose a two-level escape wheel, which is a key feature of Fasoldt’s escapement.

Fig. 3: The drawings of Fasoldt’s escapement. Image – US patent 46’652, C. Fasoldt

While Fasoldt labelled his invention a chronometer escapement, it is distinctly not a detent escapement, rather it is a double-wheel escapement.

Its functioning is fairly straightforward: note how one locking pallet (d in fig. 3) is decidedly closer to the lever’s fulcrum. This results in it having a deeper penetration accomplished by the same arc as for pallet e. Due to deeper-than-desired angular penetration of d, some light sliding may occur, but not nearly as severe as in the Swiss lever.

The desired effect of such geometry is a slower unlocking followed by a comparatively fast locking, which further results in an infinitesimal advance of the escape wheel when pallet d unlocks and pallet e locks. This particular arrangement and function resembles that of the Robin escapement devised by French watchmaker Robert Robin in the 18th century.

While it may not seem particularly noteworthy at first, there’s a small detail that will prove important later: due to the indirect impulse by means of the lever, the balance wheel is impulsed only when its direction of rotation is the same as that of the escape wheel. The reasoning behind this is rather simple: the assortment (escape wheel, lever and balance wheel) functions like an odd number of meshing gears (during the brief period when the escape wheel engages the balance through the lever), in which case the last gear (in this case the balance wheel) rotates in the same direction as the first (the escape wheel).

That happens because the lever assumes the role of an intermediate wheel, passing force indirectly between the escape wheel and balance. In a direct-impulse escapement it happens precisely the other way around, the impulse is given when the balance wheel swings in the opposite direction of the escape wheel’s motion, a movement akin to that of an even number of gears.

Assuming the mainspring and gear train coerce the escape wheel into moving in a clockwise direction and that at a given moment the balance wheel swings clockwise, the Fasoldt’s escapement functions as follows: while the balance is currently completing a supplementary arc after just having been impulsed, the escape wheel remains locked by means of pallet d. When the hairspring’s resisting force overcomes the impulse’s momentum, the balance swings back in a counterclockwise manner and its pin engages with the lever c’s fork and drags it from one banking pin to the other. On the other side of the fulcrum point, pallet d retracts from escape wheel b’s tooth slow enough for the pallet e to catch another tooth almost instantly after pallet d clears the escape wheel for moving.

Both escape wheels have moved by a small arc, which sets escape wheel a’s tooth in position and ready to drop into the impulsing pallet of the lever. Exiting the engagement with the lever c, the balance wheel continues its counterclockwise motion, driven by its own momentum. When said momentum becomes overcome by the hairspring’s resistance, it again changes direction, assuming a clockwise direction. The balance pin yet again comes in contact with the lever c’s fork, dragging it counterclockwise from one banking pin to another, which causes pallet e to disengage with escape wheel b and pallet d to fall right behind the tooth it used to lock in the previous phase, which gives escape wheel b the freedom to rotate a distance equal to the one between two of its teeth.

Moving at the same time with wheel b, one of wheel a’s teeth drops onto the impulsing pallet, pushing it, pallet which in turn passes the received impulse through the lever and to the balance wheel. Escape wheel b locks into pallet d and stops, while the impulsed balance accelerates clockwise. This succession of events happens with regularity until the mainspring’s power runs down.

Evidently, by being a single-beat escapement, the Fasoldt is not self-starting. As was the case with the detent escapement, the Fasoldt would require a gentle shake in order to initiate oscillation.

The escaping or lift angle is not specified, but satisfyingly accurate conclusions can be drawn from Fasoldt’s sketches – the lift angle has an approximate value of 62°. The circumferential ratio between lever and balance is 1.2:1, which makes for approximately 52° lever angle. These values suggest a decreased efficiency of the escapement caused by a prolonged engagement between the lever and the balance.

While neither Fasoldt nor his escapement ever gained fame (though his watchmaking business was modestly successful), his take on a chronometrically-capable escapement has its merits. The impulse is delivered in a radial, albeit indirect manner, the tangential contact during the drop causing only a small amount of resting friction as opposed to the sliding friction in Swiss lever escapements. The theoretical absence of any sliding action means there is no practical need for oiling, since the risks of congealed lubricants would far outweigh any theoretical benefits.

Fasoldt concluded his patent with what we can only assume are his observations after having experimented with running his escapement in various way: “No oil is required to make the escapement work smooth, and the injurious effects of such use are not felt. The watch keeps correct time as well after it has been in use for years as it does when new, and it is not affected by counter motion or sudden jars.”

He was obviously very confident in his creation for he equipped almost all of his pocket watches with the escapement. In terms of materials used, Fasoldt crafted the two co-axial escape wheels in gold and the lever in either steel or gold, which was customary for high-quality watches during the period.

The movement of Charles Fasoldt pocket watch no. 496 dating to 1870; the watch was sold at Antiquorum in 2007. Image – Antiquorum

The co-axial

Having had the opportunity to have examine and restore several of the greatest timepieces in history, Daniels acquired an extensive knowledge of past masters’ works, perhaps to a greater degree than anyone before him. His first book, unassumingly titled Watches, contains part of that knowledge and serves as an excellent and detailed historical chronicle of pocket watches.

It includes a chapter concerning the evolution of the escapement that explains in detail each major historical escapement. A short paragraph covers the Fasoldt escapement, accompanied by a photo presumably taken by Daniels himself (he was known to be an amateur photographer who favoured Leica cameras).

Daniels describes the Fasoldt escapement as “an interesting and rarely seen variant of the lever escapement”. He points how the pallets’ action presents some similarity to that of the Robin escapement and adds “the inertia losses in the escapement are high and the action is correspondingly weak” without explaining the reasoning behind this observation.

In summing up the Fasoldt escapement, Daniels wrote, ‘The watches are beautifully made and were a brave if undistinguished attempt to introduce a little variety into escapements which, by that time, had inevitably settled into a pattern of dull uniformity.” While short and lacking in detail, the conclusion provides us with some insight into his impression of Fasoldt’s work.

His ambiguous claim about inertia losses may stem from practical experience he had with a pocket watch fitted with such an escapement; perhaps he noticed the abnormally large lift angle or the somewhat bulky lever. But he did not mention that the escapement was designed to run dry in the same way a detent escapement was. Overall, his commentary on the Fasoldt escapement suggested Daniels didn’t think much of it. Crucially, it proves Daniels was familiar with Fasoldt’s work, despite him considering it to be less than perfect.

Fig. 4: Plate from Watches featuring the Fasoldt chronometer escapement. Image – Reproduction of plate 65, Watches (New York: Viking Press, 1965), George Daniels, Cecil Clutton

No doubt some years passed between Daniels’ first encounter with the Fasoldt escapement and the early 1970s when he perfected the co-axial escapement, fulfilling his ambition of creating a perfect escapement after much tweaking and prototyping. Daniels installed the escapement in several Swiss movements, from basic Omega time-only movements to tourbillons and even the Zenith El Primero chronograph. It proved reliable regardless of movement size, frequency, or complications.

With that, he attempted to persuade several major Swiss brands to adopt the co-axial escapement by demonstrating its performance and superiority to the Swiss lever across a range of movements. He met with little luck until the late Nicolas G. Hayek acquired the co-axial escapement for Omega. It took several more years for his dream of industrialising the co-axial to be realised, when in 1999 the first Omega watches equipped with the co-axial were launched.

One attribute that makes the co-axial escapement great is the way it combines all of Daniels’ requirements for an ideal escapement, one that can in theory surpass the Swiss lever he so despised, namely operating with minimal friction so it could go lubricant-free, to be self-starting, and to be reasonably easy to produce on a large scale. To that end, the co-axial makes use of a mixed-impulse system: one impulse is given directly to the balance wheel, while the other is delivered indirectly through a lever.

In summary, the co-axial can be thought of as a Swiss lever escapement at its base, with two standard pallets for locking and unlocking. However, instead of using the two standard pallets to transmit impulses to power the balance, it instead uses two additional pallets – one on a third arm of the escape lever, and one on the balance wheel arbour. These two additional pallets allow for a cleaner tangential impulse, minimising the effect of sliding friction. And ultimately this results in a design reminiscent to Fasoldt’s escapement.

Explaining co-axial’s operation should be considerably easier now since I already covered the Fasoldt in detail. The co-axial can be seen as a combination of the direct-impulse double-wheel and Fasoldt escapements, but bearing a closer resemblance to the latter.

While the co-axial does evoke the Fasoldt, Daniels did some extensive and remarkable work concerning the geometry and arrangement of the co-axial escapement. In the Fasoldt escapement, the centre of the escape wheel, the fulcrum of the lever, and the centre of the balance wheel all sit on the same line. This particular arrangement means the Fasoldt an “in-line” escapement, a trait it shares with the Swiss lever.

In practice, it means that the escape wheel is situated far from the balance so there no way they can directly interact. This is where the genius of Daniels’ idea comes through: he brought the escape wheel and balance as close together as possible (arranged in the same way as in his double-wheel escapement) while moving the lever to the side. The centres of each component no longer sit on the same line, instead, they form the three points of a triangle.

The lever in the co-axial, while still retaining three pallets fitted radially around the fulcrum, is different from that in the Fasoldt. Its fork (the part that interacts with the balance roller pin) is positioned near to the entry pallet. The same engineering choice can be found in some Swiss lever escapements with tourbillons, but that is done to save space. In the co-axial, the choice was made to facilitate contact between the two pallets seated equidistant from the fulcrum. This means that each interaction of the pallets with the escape wheel is equal, allowing the escape wheel to travel an identical distance of one tooth between each unlocking and locking.

The major innovation of the co-axial is the extra function performed by the lower escape wheel, which now provides direct impulse to the balance in addition to its locking function. As previously discussed, direct impulse can only occur between a balance and escape wheel moving in opposing directions. Combine that with the Fasoldt-inspired lever impulse phase and the result is a double-impulse escapement relying on just one escape wheel. This is precisely where the magic of the co-axial lies, a friction-free double impulse with just one escape wheel.

Fig. 5: Co-axial escapement stages. Image – abbeyclock.com

The co-axial (fig. 5) bears some resemblance to both the double-wheel and Fasoldt escapements in both form and function. But the co-axial escapement has two escape wheels with fewer teeth than those in the Fasoldt escapement. This stems from the double impulse nature of the co-axial, which means the impulsing action is split equally between the upper and lover escape wheels.

A step-by-step explanation of the co-axial escapement’s operation is as follows:

In fig. 5.1, the balance wheel begins turning back after the hairspring’s resisting force overcomes the impulse from the escapement. The escape wheels are locked by pallet L2 of lever C, which acts on wheel B. When the balance wheel returns toward its equilibrium point, the pin P engages lever C by making contact with its fork.

Pallet L2 disengages from wheel B, which promptly rotates and one of its teeth makes tangential contact with impulse pallet I1. Having completed an impulsing phase, the two-layer escape wheel comes to a stop when L1 locks one of its teeth (as shown in fig. 5.3). Again, the balance wheel begins to swing back, coerced by the hairspring. When the roller pin P engages the lever C, the escape wheel gets unlocked and the impulsing wheel A acts upon pallet I2, pushing the lever C, which in turn delivers the impulse to the balance through pin P.

Importantly, the co-axial is self-starting by design. When the mainspring runs down, the balance wheel settles in an equilibrium position, centred by the hairspring. In its equilibrium position, the balance half-engages the lever, which only faintly locks the escape wheel. If the watch is wound, the escape wheel will press upon either of the impulse pallets (I1 or I2, depending on the position), disturbing the balance’s equilibrium state and generating a small oscillation. That would cause a complete engagement or disengagement of the lever, thus starting an oscillating cycle.

In summary, the indirect impulse as well as the locking and unlocking phases of the co-axial escapement are in many ways borrowed from the Fasoldt escapement, while the direct impulse phase of the co-axial is identical to that in double-wheel escapement.

Interestingly, the very name of the co-axial escapement also refers back to the Fasoldt. The co-axial gets its name of the twin, stacked escape wheels in the original iteration of the escapement, a feature it shares with the Fasoldt. On the other hand, current iterations of the co-axial offered by Roger W. Smith in his watches only have a single escape wheel with two layers of teeth, making the co-axial moniker somewhat inaccurate.

A recent iteration of the co-axial escapement as seen in a 2015 Roger W. Smith Series 2, revealing its single escape wheel

Parting thoughts

Analysing the double-wheel and co-axial escapements of Daniels as well as the Fasoldt escapement makes it likely the co-axial is an evolutionary hybrid of the other two.

In his memoir, All in Good Time: Reflections of a Watchmaker, Daniels recollects the patent office citing three patents against the one he filed for the co-axial, namely the Robin escapement, the double mixed-impulse Robin escapement (a Breguet design), and the Fasoldt chronometer escapement. That implies that even the non-specialists at patent office noticed the resemblance of the co-axial to the much older Fasoldt. Yet, except for the escape wheel and curious lever design, there is nothing else that links the two designs. Their respective execution and operation are remarkably different.

Today the co-axial is widely hailed as an a paragon of chronometry and reliability, thanks in large part to Omega’s massive marketing machine. It is irrefutable that Daniels devoted a great portion of his career to perfecting both the theoretical and practical aspects of co-axial escapement. He endured much trial and error until he deemed it satisfactory.

And the Fasoldt escapement was not perfect at all, with its large lift angle that interferes with the balance’s natural oscillation for longer than desired. And since it was a single impulse escapement, Fasoldt operates with a “lost beat”that robs the balance of its momentum while not providing any impulse in return. The co-axial, on the other hand, has a 36° lift angle and an 18° lever angle (due to the 2:1 lever to balance circumference ratio that Daniels deemed ideal), which keep inertial losses to a minimum.

Even Daniels’ earlier double-wheel escapement had its faults, mainly the need for a secondary gear train, perhaps explaining why he developed it no further. The co-axial is just as accurate and precise as the double-wheel, but runs on a single gear train, which makes it infinitely more practical in terms of manufacturing.

The ultimate conclusion to be drawn is the co-axial escapement was not merely the brainchild of one brilliant watchmaker, but an invention built on the ideas of historical greats, including Robert Robin, Abraham-Louis Breguet, and of course Charles Fasoldt.

A longtime watch enthusiast, the author is currently studying mathematics and physics, and plans to continue his studies in micro-engineering at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

As we reflect on the past year, we’re proud of the stories we published and grateful for all of our readers – we appreciate you. Before the year closes, we want to revisit some of your favourite stories from 2022, from in-depth reviews of the most significant watches of the year to our fascinating conversations with thought leaders within the industry.

Technical deep-dives

Understanding of today’s most complex timepieces can be a challenge (even for us sometimes). But with our string of in-depth reviews, we aim to help the reader better appreciate these watches.

Amongst the year’s highlights us two-part, in-depth examination of the Grand Seiko Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon SLGT003 (you”ll find the second part here) with its highly skeletonised movement featuring a one-second remontoir and tourbillon mounted on the same axis.

Another story with a substantial focus on Japanese watchmaking was an engineer’s perspective on quartz watches: a personal take on the complexities of the technology and why it can stand on par with the mechanical watches. 

Understanding the symmetrical construction of the Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon

We also covered more conventional high-end watchmaking, but in our unique, detailed manner. We of course looked at the second-generation A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk, which received a major upgrade thanks to a revamped movement.

And to help put the new Zeitwerk in context, we published a collector’s guide that compiles all the known variants of the model since its debut in 2009, explaining the short but storied history of the digital watch that began life as a sketch by the late Gunter Blümlein. 

The Zeitwerk’s upgraded cal. L043.6

Another familiar watch we looked at was the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Extra-Thin ref. 16202. We explained the upgrades of the new “Jumbo” – with an emphasis on the technical improvements – which is almost a one-for-one copy of the 1972 original but sports the brand-new cal. 7121, a necessary upgrade for the iconic sports watch.

We also gave the Patek Philippe Calatrava ref. 5226G the same treatment. Vintage inspired but a new design nonetheless, we show how the ref. 5226 points the way forward for Patek Philippe. Though an entry-level model, the watch has an elaborately executed case with a clous de Paris guilloche band matched with a patterned dial.

Another of our notable stories on Patek Philippe was a deep dive into its service centre in Singapore. We got a rare chance to visit the brand’s regional serviceing hub, where its watchmakers repair, refinish, and restore. In this behind-the-scenes look, we explored the many processes needed to bring a Patek Philippe timepiece back to factory-specified condition.

The Royal Oak ref. 16202 with the new cal. 7121

Fine hobnail guilloche on the case middle of the Calatrava ref. 5226G

Independent thought

Naturally we covered the year’s most notable in independent watchmaking. One of the standouts was up-and-coming watchmaker Sylvain Pinaud. His Origine is impressive – meticulously crafted in construction and finish – while the design is uncluttered, though he has yet to develop a strong aesthetic for his brand.

Also a one-man show, Yosuke Seikiguchi launched his first watch with the Primevère. It is an elegant composition that focuses on recreating the quality and feel of 19th-century pocket watches from the Vallee de Joux. Mr Sekiguchi even makes most of the movement with antiquated techniques, including cutting the silver bridges with a saw and file.

The Sylvain Pinaud Origine

The enamel dial of the Yosuke Seikiguchi Primevère

Another watchmaker that caught our attention was Aaron Becsei. The Hungarian watchmaker collaborated with American knife maker Todd Rexford to create the Bexei Dignitas Pure “Project XX”.

It’s a striking reinterpretation of Bexei’s signature Gothic wristwatch that incorporates”hot-hammered” zirconium. Much of the watch, including the dial and movement bridges, are produced and “hot hammered” by the Mr Rexford, a custom knife maker whose blades sell for five figures. But Mr Bexei then applies his trademark fine finishing to the zirconium parts, which have traditional anglage, while the steel parts sport black polishing. 

The Bexei Dignitas Pure “Project XX”

Perspectives on the industry and its history

A somewhat forgotten military instrument of the Cold War, the Tutima Military Chronograph ref. 798 is perhaps the last great pilot’s chronograph – Brandon Moore explained why.

Mr Moore applied his analysis to an entirely different facet of watchmaking with his compelling examination how many watchmakers it takes to build a watch. Using the metric of “watchmaker-hours per watch”, he charts the labour intensive nature of fine watchmaking – and the less intensive nature of mass production.

The Tutima Military Chronograph

For industry analysis from an insider, we turned to Oliver R. Müller as usual. Best known as the former chief executive of Laurent Ferrier, he detailed the trends and numbers that defined Swiss watchmaking for the year, working off the annual report he publishes with Morgan Stanley. His conclusion this year: the industry landscape is evolving and consolidating around a few major brands, with Rolex continuing to cement its position as the dominant player.

Mr Müller also examined the evolving preferences of the consumer in China, perhaps the world’s most important market for watches and also luxury goods. Interestingly, he notes that Hermès has climbed the ranks to become one of the top watches brands in the country.

Finally, our best stories of 2022 must include the insightful interviews with the duo who are each guardians of their respective brand’s heritage: Pierre Rainero of Cartier and Christian Selmoni of Vacheron Constantin. The conversations with the two gentlemen revealed their knowledge of watchmaking, design, and history – and how each of these can elevate a brand.

For almost as long as I’ve been interested in watches, I’ve tried to find an objective way to visualise the stratification of the various luxury watch brands. I’m as fascinated by the process of watchmaking as much as the products themselves, and I wanted to find a way to differentiate brands based on the production techniques they employ, yet do so objectively.

I believe you can tell a lot about a brand’s values and capabilities by looking at their methods, but it can be difficult to penetrate the smoke and mirrors of luxury watch marketing to see what’s really going on behind the curtain.

An objective measure: watchmaker-hours per watch

In my review of the Saxonia Thin last year, I used the metric “watches per watchmaker” to illustrate the economics of A. Lange & Söhne. While this is not a perfect metric, it is simple and quantitative, and crucially, it can often be derived from publicly available information.

Taking this analysis one step further, I added Swiss, German, and Japanese national statistics for working hours to calculate the maximum possible number of watchmaker-hours per watch for more than 50 luxury watch brands.

The start of the map, the Saxonia Thin

How to interpret this metric

The watchmaker-hours metric is not the number of hours that a watchmaker spends on every watch. Rather, it’s the theoretical maximum number of hours that a brand’s watchmakers could possibly spend with each watch. This workrate can be viewed as a simple proxy for the amount of human involvement that each individual watch can get during the production process.

For example, Ferdinand Berthoud is able to invest up to 643 watchmaker-hours in each watch. This is the ceiling; the actual number of hours that a watchmaker spends with each watch will be somewhat less, though it will still be a substantial number, which makes sense given that each of the brand’s watches receives more than 100 hours of hand finishing alone.

The peak: 300+

At the highest level of watchmaking, brands produce fewer than five watches per employee per year, resulting in an average of 834 watchmaker-hours per watch across these 15 brands. Collectors often refer to brands in this category as “independents” but this term lacks precision; not all of these brands are truly independent, while some industrial brands further down the list are.

With production organised around a high degree of hand craftsmanship, output is naturally constrained by the time it takes to produce each watch, ensuring limited production. To put this in perspective, the 15 brands shown above make less than 500 watches per year, combined. In contrast, Rolex makes more than 2,000 watches every day.

The Sylvain Pinaud Origine shows what is possible with artisanal methods

In this category, watches are sometimes referred to as “handmade”, but this term is a bit of a misnomer. With a few exceptions, these watches begin life like any other, conceived using CAD software, with the larger components like main plates and bridges produced using CNC lathes, electro wire erosion, and other modern methods.

It’s what happens next that elevates these watches above the rest of the industry. Wheels and pinions are often produced using vintage manually operated lathes, and dials often benefit from hand-turned guilloche. In terms of finishing and complications, black-polished steel and inner angles are the norm, as are exotic complications (like a remontoir) and unusual escapements.

With such small annual production, most of these brands produce just one or two different movements and models. The outlier is Greubel Forsey, which has achieved the scale (around 115 people) needed to maintain production of several different models and complications including a perpetual calendar, a grande sonnerie, and a world timer.

The Greubel Forsey Hand Made 1

Artisanal-industrial: 100-299

Next we have brands that make, on average, 6-20 watches per employee per year and can invest a maximum of 100-299 watchmaker-hours per watch. This category is dominated, commercially and culturally, by A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe.

At this level, lush hand finishing is expected; black polished steel is common and inner angles can still be found, albeit to a lesser degree. Among brands that maintain a complete collection of different complications (chronographs, tourbillons, minute repeaters, perpetual calendars, and world timers), Lange and Journe are the most artisanal, with capacity for up to 212 and 264 watchmaker-hours for each watch, respectively.

The fine craftsmanship of the latest-generation Lange Zeitwerk

The presence of Montblanc in this category may shock some readers, but this is only the ratio for the brand’s high-end production at its Minerva facility in Villeret which is set up to provide up to 196 watchmaker-hours per watch. In contrast, Montblanc’s core collection likely receives no more than three watchmaker-hours per watch. Part of the value of a market map like this is illustrating where exceptional collections from mainstream brands fit into the bigger picture.

A Montblanc Villeret split-seconds chronograph, something you won’t find at the brand’s ubiquitous airport boutiques

Another outlier in this segment is Urwerk. While most of the brands in this category are limited in output by the time invested in finishing, Urwerk’s finishing is more industrial than that of its peers. Instead, output is constrained by the extra time spent engineering novel displays and case structures.

The curious case of the Urwerk UR-111C

Industrial haute horlogerie: 30-99

The next category contains most of the well-known haute horlogerie brands, including the so-called “holy trinity” of Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Vacheron Constantin. These brands are regarded with special esteem for having kept the traditions of haute horlogerie alive throughout much of the 20th century. But as the map suggests, the ceiling for what is possible in fine watchmaking has risen significantly along with the growth of the luxury category over the past 30 years.

Many of the brands in this category have mastered the art of producing well-finished watches at industrial scale. This involves the use of machines for most of the finishing, embellished with hand finishing in key areas that are likely to have the greatest visual impact. A few of these brands flirt with inner angles, but this is uncommon; black-polished steel is rarely seen.

Worth noting is Patek Philippe, which employs 1,600 staff and produces about 68,000 watches per year, suggesting a maximum of 38.6 watchmaker-hours per watch. Looking at Patek’s mechanical watch production only, this number gets closer to 50 but still lags behind most rivals. This is important because it helps explain some of the choices the brand makes in its finishing.

For example, many collectors lamented the absence of any sharp inner angles on the new 5236 perpetual calendar. But the fact is that an average of less than 50 watchmaker-hours per watch is just not enough to add these kinds of sought-after flourishes to every watch, forcing the brand to ration these embellishments to their more elite pieces. While the absence is notable, good finishing is about much more than just inner angles and Patek’s movements remain at or near the top of this category in terms of overall quality.

The business side of the ref. 5236P

In contrast, Audemars Piguet currently produces about 48,000 watches per year with about 2,000 staff (up to 72.9 watchmaker-hours per watch). Even this impressive number requires rationing of inner angles, though they can be found abundantly relative to Patek.

Audemars Piguet recently announced plans to increase production to about 65,000 watches per year by 2027. It will be interesting to see how the brand meets these growth targets; were they to achieve this increase in volume with their current headcount, it would dilute their workrate closer to where Patek Philippe is today.

The gold winding mass of the Audemars Piguet cal. 4409 is finished by hand, with sharp inner angles, while the majority of the movement bears a machine finish (a very well done machine finish)

An outlier in this category is Richard Mille, a brand that stands out not only for its high average retail price of US$226,000, but also for outsourcing the production of most of its movements to external suppliers. Though Richard Mille recently introduced its first in-house movement, the CRMC1 chronograph, most of the brand’s watches rely on movements from Vaucher and Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP).

These movements are manufactured and finished by their respective suppliers, before being assembled, tested, and cased at Richard Mille’s own facility. It means that the watchmaker-hours metric is undercounting the effort that goes into a Richard Mille watch. But the central question for this map is whether enough extra watchmaker-hours are spent by third parties to cause the brand to change categories.

For that to be the case, APRP and Vaucher would need to employ more than 100 staff solely dedicated to Richard Mille’s movements. I think it’s unlikely that these suppliers require this many staff just for Richard Mille, so I’m confident the brand is categorised appropriately alongside peers like Audemars Piguet and Parmigiani.

An old-school Richard Mille RM002 with an APRP movement

Industrial fine watchmaking: 10-29

This was the most surprising slice of the market. From Bulgari’s ultra-thin record-breakers to Ulysse Nardin’s constant force Ulysse Anchor escapement and Nomos’ playful Bauhaus designs, these brands do things their own way.

Though this segment accounts for only about 200,000 watches annually, the brands that comprise it provide more than their fair share of innovation and creativity. And despite their nineteenth-century roots, many of these brands reject the staid codes of haute horlogerie, focusing instead on pushing the boundaries of industrial watchmaking.

I expected to see Jaeger-LeCoultre in the 30-99 range, but the brand’s production of 95,000 watches per year and headcount around 1,200 suggest a maximum of 20 watchmaker-hours per watch. The brand’s technical know-how is evident in the fact that it is able to produce so many watches with finishing (in its core range) on par with rivals like Glashütte Original, while also producing a wide variety of unusual complications like the Reverso Tribute Gyrotourbillon that clearly benefit from many hours of hand finishing.

When it comes to elaborate and unusual complications, Jaeger-LeCoultre is in a category by itself

Another surprise was Zenith, with a maximum of 29 watchmaker-hours per watch. Zenith tends to compete on price with Rolex and IWC, but the data indicates that about six times as many labour hours are available for the production of each watch compared to these rivals. While Zenith makes excellent watches, it’s hard to see where this extra labor effort is going, leading me to speculate that there is excess capacity in the production process.

Nomos is a standout brand in this category due to its low average price point. Nomos benefits from the same “Glashüttenomics” as Lange and Glashütte Original, with lower labor costs than in neighboring Switzerland. This means the brand can afford to invest more watchmaker-hours in each piece, raising the level of craftsmanship (and also value) compared to similarly priced Swiss rivals.

Industrial prowess: 1-9

Most large luxury watch brands have organised their production processes to spend no more than nine watchmaker-hours per watch. Big names like Rolex, Omega, IWC, Cartier, and Grand Seiko can spend a maximum of 3-6 watchmaker-hours per watch.

In seeking to appeal to a mainstream audience, these brands tend to stick to clearly defined aesthetic codes that have evolved over decades. Whether it’s the Rolex Submariner, Cartier Tank, Omega Speedmaster, or Breitling Navitimer, historical fidelity and unambiguous positioning are key. Prominent brand partnerships and A-list ambassadors maximize mimetic desire.

These brands are able to produce enormous numbers of high-quality watches thanks to investments in state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, which are at the forefront of automation in the context of watchmaking. While final assembly is largely manual, production, finishing, and testing are done in large batches by primarily automated methods.

But that’s not to say their products are inferior. One of the great contradictions in watchmaking is the fact that industrial brands that make watches with the least amount of human involvement tend to have the most exacting internal requirements for precision, and also the longest warranties.

Testing a batch of 100 watches at Tudor. For context, this tray could hold the total annual production of Kari Voutilainen, Roger Smith, Akrivia, Bexei, and Raul Pages combined. Image – Tudor

In a category filled with brands that make hundreds of thousands of watches per year, Grand Seiko is an outlier, with an annual production around 45,000 watches. Though this volume seems almost artisanal next to a brand like Rolex, Grand Seiko is nonetheless at the forefront of mass production among the brands studied. Assuming a typical statutory work week, Grand Seiko can likely invest no more than 3.8 watchmaker-hours in each watch.

For a true apples-to-apples comparison, I excluded quartz and Spring Drive and focused only on Grand Seiko’s mechanical watch production, referencing Plus9Time’s detailed manufacture visit from 2016 which documented 60 watchmakers producing 30,000 watches annually. While Grand Seiko has recently transitioned its mechanical watch production to a new facility and introduced the new cal. 9SA5, the bulk of the brand’s mechanical watch output by volume consists of the same core movements that were in production in 2016.

Artisan studios

I mentioned that the watchmaker-hours metric is not perfect. One of its inherent problems is the fact that it conflates a brand’s entire production into a single number, obfuscating the differences between a brand’s primary collections and its elite pieces.

This is a problem because many brands effectively operate artisan studios within their manufactures that operate semi-independently and produce watches with very different economics than those of the broader organisation.

The Patek Philippe ref. 5959P exhibits a level of craftsmanship that suggests at least 200 watchmaker-hours per watch, but the brand’s more industrial products make up the bulk of its annual production of over 60,000 watches

Examples include Seiko’s Micro Artist Studio and Montblanc’s Minerva manufacture. For these workshops, I was able to find enough data to segment them as standalone brands in the market map. Unfortunately, the team structures at other brands like Vacheron Constantain and Patek Philippe are not as well-defined and so I was not able to plot these specialist workshops individually. That said, I estimate that over 200 watchmaker-hours are allocated to these brands’ halo pieces, like the Patek Philippe ref. 5959 split-seconds chronograph.

Watchmaker-hours per dollar

The watchmaker-hours metric can also be combined with price data to visualise clusters of brands that offer similar levels of craftsmanship value. This graph helps illustrate which brands have more pricing power in the market and can charge the highest prices on a watchmaker-hour basis.

Glashütte Original is the standout value king, charging a mere US$78 per watchmaker-hour. Comparing the “big three” brands, Patek Philippe’s watches are priced at US$773 per watchmaker-hour, compared to about US$540 for Audemars Piguet and US$408 for Vacheron Constantin. Lange and Journe clock in at US$198 and US$225, respectively.

The closer a brand is to the red zone, the more costly it is on a watchmaker-hour basis

Because of their extreme top-right positions, excluding A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe provides a better look at the lower-left sector.

The same data excluding F.P. Journe and Lange

The price of fame

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, mainstream brands like Rolex, Omega, IWC, Cartier, Breitling, Hermes, and Montblanc all charge more than the haute horlogerie brands on a watchmaker-hours basis. Their average prices are much lower, but their extreme production efficiency results in watches that cost more than US$1,000 per watchmaker-hour.

Watchmaker-hours throughout history

These numbers take on additional meaning when put into historical context.

According to data compiled by Professor Pierre-Yves Donzé, Louis Brandt & Frère produced 100,000 pocket watches with 600 staff in 1890. Assuming 12-hour workdays (working hours were much longer back then), this works out to a maximum of around 17 watchmaker-hours per watch. This is similar to rival Longines, which could invest a maximum of 20 watchmaker-hours per watch in 1901, and 19 watchmaker-hours in 1905.

By 1914, Louis Brandt & Frère had been renamed Omega (in honour of its flagship pocket watch movement) and reduced its maximum watchmaker-hours per watch to about 12, with 935 staff producing an estimated 235,000 watches annually.

However, neither Omega nor Longines could match the production efficiency of Tavannes, which imported American watchmaking equipment and, by 1913, was able to produce 2.6 watches per watchmaker per day, suggesting a maximum of around five watchmaker-hours per watch.

Today, thanks to modern advances in computer-aided design and manufacture, makers of mainstream luxury watches are able to produce millions of watches annually with just a few watchmaker-hours per watch, while offering significantly improved precision and durability.

The movement assembly workshop at IWC that is representative of large-scale watchmaking in the modern day. Image – IWC

Observations

Viewed through the lens of watchmaker-hours, the industry comes into focus. Previously ill-defined categories like “independents” and haute horlogerie can now be defined more objectively, with lines drawn according to quantifiable dimensions.

While I believe there’s a limit to the utility of thinking about solely about brands – in fact I encourage collectors to judge each watch on its own merits – I do think a market map can be helpful for visualising clusters of brands to calibrate expectations about their products. This is especially the case for new enthusiasts, but it can also be a helpful sanity check for even the most seasoned collectors.

This map highlights the massive differences in unit economics between the large and small brands, and illustrates the thresholds at which different levels of craftsmanship are possible. It also reveals the differing nature of exclusivity across the industry. Some of the brands most coveted for exclusivity, like Patek Philippe and Rolex, have been able to maintain this image despite their large production due to the fact that select models remain in short supply.

In contrast, watches from brands towards the top of the table are inherently more exclusive by nature of their production methods, which limit the number of watches that can be produced to just a few pieces each year.

Rexhep Rexhepi of Akrivia, which produces less than 30 watches a year

The map also highlights another important point. If a brand’s watchmaker-hours count is surprisingly low, it means that either less time is spent on hand craftsmanship, or more work is done by third-parties than is disclosed.

While it’s tempting to view each segment as homogeneous, there is still room for substantial differentiation within each tier. Not all brands have access to the same capital, intellectual property, or expertise. The industrial know-how of some brands means they’re able to accomplish a lot more with each watchmaker-hour. 

This is especially true towards the bottom of the pyramid where watches receive less human involvement; when a watch is made substantially by machines, the differentiated capabilities of those machines really matter. 

For example, Tudor has benefited tremendously from the industrial expertise of its parent company, Rolex. Once a sub-brand that relied on third-party movements, Tudor now punches well above its weight and offers higher quality than brands like Breitling and Panerai, despite a lower average price point.

A final observation is simply the overwhelming size of the larger brands. Cumulatively, the 50-plus brands analysed produce about 3.75 million watches per year with a maximum of about 34 million watchmaker-hours (averaging about nine watchmaker-hours per watch). But at the highest level, brands like Greubel Forsey, Roger Smith, and Bexei are able to spend more that 1,500 watchmaker-hours per watch, raising the median for this sample to around 75 watchmaker-hours.

Data Methodology

1. For production and average retail price figures, I relied on the 2022 watch industry report by Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult, data provided by brands, and published interviews with brand executives.
2. For headcount data, I relied on data provided by brands, published interviews, and firsthand reports from manufacture visits. Where no data could be found, I used my own estimates.
3. Brands are arranged by estimated annual production volume from high to low within each segment.
4. Since not all employees are watchmakers, the model assumes that 85% of total employees are production watchmakers (a generous assumption). In cases where the true number of watchmakers is known, this adjustment was not made.

Undoubtedly the most unusual wristwatch from A. Lange & Söhne – and perhaps the brand’s most intriguing – the Zeitwerk is digital but entirely mechanical. Thirteen years after the first model made its debut and became a landmark in modern watchmaking, Lange has just unveiled the all-new, second-generation Zeitwerk.

Gently redesigned but substantially improved, the second-generation model brings the total number of Zeitwerk models to ten (totalling 17 references) from 2009 to now. What follows is a look at every single Zeitwerk reference, including rarely-seen limited editions and a little-known unique piece (save for the unique example never publicly announced by Lange). It’s intended to be be a clear and concise guide covering every single model, one that details the varied functions, decoration, and changes across variants.

The latest-generation Zeitwerk movement, still recognisable thanks to the remontoir bridge

A brief history

Before we dive into the watches, it’s important to understand how the Zeitwerk came along and its significance in modern watchmaking.

Like much else created by Lange, the Zeitwerk has its roots in historical watchmaking in Saxony. The Zeitwerk’s digital display takes its cues from the five-minute clock sitting over the stage in the Dresden’s Semper Opera.

And like much else in historical Saxon watchmaking, the clock is related to A. Lange & Söhne. The clock maker behind the opera timekeeper, Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes, was the father-in-law of Ferdinand-Adolph Lange, the titular “A. Lange” who founded his firm in 1845.

The five-minute clock in the Semper Opera. Image – Lange

The impetus for the digital wristwatch, however, came from Gunter Blümlein, the key man behind the revival of Lange in 1990. According to Anthony de Haas, now Lange’s Product Development Director, the late Blümlein sketched a digital Lange wristwatch in 2001, shortly before he passed away.

Development of the idea started in 2004 when Mr de Haas joined the company. Over the following five years, the design underwent multiple iterations – some far removed from the original concept – before culminating in the now-classic Zeitwerk dial. For the full story behind the genesis of the Zeitwerk, revisit our 2018 story.

Early concepts for the Lange digital watch

Significance

Even now, two decades since Blümlein penned the concept, the Zeitwerk remains something of a unicorn, a feat considering digital displays are not a modern invention. In fact, they can be found in pocket watches from the 19th century. What sets the Zeitwerk apart?

The most obvious is the horizontal display of the digital hours and minutes – arranged from left to right like how time is read – whereas historical digital displays were laid out vertically as a matter of mechanical convenience.

Even in modern-day watchmaking, the Zeitwerk is one of the only three watches with horizontal hours and minutes – and likely the only one that functions reliably. The other two are the De Grisogono Meccanico dG from 2008 and the François Quentin 4N from 2010.

And when pitted against digital watches from F.P. Journe or Harry Winston’s Opus, the Zeitwerk is arguably more accomplished in technical terms, simply because it boasts superior robustness and reliability.

The comparison against the likes of F.P. Journe is also instructive because it reveals that Lange is an establishment brand with an independent spirit. It’s the only mainstream brand, one owned by luxury group by less, that has a watch as exotic as the Zeitwerk in the catalogue. Other comparable watches are the products of niche or independent watchmakers.

The second-generation Zeitwerk in pink gold

Technically-minded enthusiasts will realise the secret to the Zeitwerk’s digital display is the constant-force mechanism, also known as a remontoir, that drives the large and heavy discs. Centred on a tiny spring that stores and instantaneously releases energy every minute, the remontoir is what makes the Zeitwerk possible.

The reason for that is simply energy consumption. A conventional gear train has insufficient torque to drive the discs without affecting timekeeping, while a separate mainspring would be too much, both in terms of power and size.

That left the remontoir as the most elegant solution, and also one that already existed when the Zeitwerk was in development. The mechanism was borrowed from the Lange 31, which required a remontoir for the opposite purpose. While in a Zeitwerk the remontoir rations out the limited energy in the mainspring, in the Lange 31 the constant-force mechanism was needed to moderate the power of the monstrous mainspring with a 31-day power reserve.

The Lange 31 with its enormous mainspring that is wound by a key that goes into the socket on the case back; and the remontoir is visible just next to the balance wheel

Overview

Launched in May 2009, the Zeitwerk collection totals to 17 references over 13 years, a small number considering its status as an iconic watch of the brand. Most of the references are due to the addition of striking complications. As a result there are essentially five variations based on function: time-only, date, hour striker, decimal striker, and minute repeater.

The five function groups of the Zeitwerk (clockwise from top-left): time only, date, decimal striker, minute repeater, hour striker

Despite the varied complications, the Zeitwerk collection is powered by only two distinct movement generations. Amongst the key differences between the two is power reserve, 36 hours for the first and 72 for the second.

In the current catalogue, the distinction is clear: all chiming Zeitwerk models are equipped with first-generation movement, while the non-chiming watches have been upgraded to sport the second-generation movement.

The second-generation movement (left) and first

The comparatively few variants of the Zeitwerk means it retains a strong, recognisable aesthetic that has varied little over the last decade. Indeed, there are only three dial types found on the Zeitwerk to date, namely conventional galvanic-coated silver, clear sapphire Luminous, and engraved Handwerkskunst.

Dial types (from left): silver, clear sapphire, and hand engraved

And in terms of case material, the Zeitwerk sticks to the usual options offered by Lange, namely the three colours of gold, platinum, as well the brand’s proprietary Honey Gold. That, of course, covers only the publicly known Zeitwerk iterations.

The Decimal Strike in Honey Gold

Unusually, the Zeitwerk line boasts a generous number of limited edition relative to the model variants. There have been seven limited edition Zeitwerks thus far, excluding the known unique piece, which add up to almost half the references ever produced.

Three of the limited editions have conventional silver dials, two are clear sapphire, and one is hand engraved. In terms of complications, four of the limited editions are time only, while the rest are chiming watches.

Notably, one of the limited editions, the Decimal Strike, was a one-off complication as its movement never made it into the regular catalogue.

The seven limited editions and the unique piece (bottom right corner)

May 2009 – the original

The original Zeitwerk was unveiled in May 2009 in three colours of gold plus platinum. That same year, the Zeitwerk took home the L’Aiguille d’Or, the top prize at the GPHG.

The references were 140.029 (white gold), 140.021 (yellow gold), 140.032 (rose gold) and 140.025 (platinum). All four references contained the L043.1 with a patented, one-minute constant-force mechanism and power reserve of 36 hours.

Clockwise from top left: platinum, yellow gold, white gold, and pink gold

The Zeitwerk case metal and dial combinations were similar to that of other Lange models, most notably the Lange 1. The yellow gold model was matched with a champagne dial, pink gold with silver, platinum with pale grey, while the white gold model had a black dial, the only one with a dark-coloured dial.

To match the case metal, the “wing” bridge for the time display was untreated German silver on the yellow gold and pink gold models, while on the white gold and platinum models the bridge was plated with rhodium to give it a silvery hue echoing the case.

The OG Zeitwerk in pink gold

The models were all regular production, save for the platinum model that was limited to 200 pieces. The yellow gold model was discontinued first in 2013, but the pink and white gold versions were in production until earlier this year.

Though four references were announced in 2009, the number of first-generation, time-only Zeitwerk models later increased to seven, when limited editions like the Luminous and Handwerkskunst were launched.

References: 140.029 (white gold), 140.021 (yellow gold), 140.032 (pink gold) and 140.025 (platinum)
Movement: L043.1
Limited edition: 200 pieces for the platinum version

November 2009 and January 2010 – the first “Lumen”

Shortly after the Zeitwerk was launched, Lange took the covers off a surprising iteration of the model: the Zeitwerk “Phantom” ref. 140.035 that was the first-ever “Lumen” edition. It was announced in late 2009 and then officially unveiled at SIHH the follow year.

For a limited edition variant to arrive just months after the original was unexpected – especially since the Luminous even more limited than the platinum edition and priced substantially higher – but the timing was perhaps intentional in order to cater the strong commercial success of the Zeitwerk. And remember the Financial Crisis ongoing at the time, which dimmed overall demand for the brand’s watches, meaning the Zeitwerk might have provided a much-needed boost.

Limited to 100 pieces, the Zeitwerk Luminous has a grey-tinted clear sapphire dial that reveals the extra-large discs beneath. Utterly unexpected from Lange, a brand better known at the time for studious formality, the Luminous is appealing not just because it is different but because the discs glow in the dark at night.

Notably, the “wing” bridge, along with the sub-dial for the seconds, are coated black, an unusual design feature in a Lange. Minor changes were made to the movement due to the see-through dial, resulting in a new movement known as L043.3, instead of the L043.1 found in the original.

The first of only two Zeitwerk Luminous editions, this special execution had a case of platinum, the metal of choice for most Lange limited editions at the time.

Reference: 140.035 (platinum)
Movement: L043.3
Limited edition: 100 pieces
Notable features: Tinted sapphire dial with luminous discs

January 2011 – the first complicated Zeitwerk

With the standard movement being L043.1 and the Luminous containing the L043.3, you might be wondering what happened in between the two calibres.

The answer arrived during SIHH 2011 when Lange unveiled the first complicated Zeitwerk, the Striking Time powered by the L043.2. Interestingly, the calibre number indicates the chiming Zeitwerk began before the Luminous model.

The Striking Time isn’t a minute repeater, but rather an hour striker. It chimes a single low note at the top of every hour as well as at the a singe high note at quarters. In other words, it indicates the passing of the time, instead of sounding out the time.

The Striking Time was the first and simplest of the three chiming Zeitwerk models to date, but it’s arguably important since it signalled the start of the Zeitwerk’s foray into complications.

Unlike preceding Zeitwerk models, the Striking Time has a larger case of 44.2 mm to accommodate the hammers and gongs visible on the dial. And the dial itself was tweaked to create recesses for the hammers and gongs.

The L043.2 movement

Two versions of the Striking Time were unveiled, first the the ref. 145.025 in platinum, which was limited to 100 pieces, and then the ref. 145.029 in white gold that is still in production today. Another version in rose gold was unveiled a few years later, resulting in three Striking Time references so far.

References: 145.025 (platinum) and 145.029 (white gold)
Movement: L043.2
Limited edition: 100 pieces for the platinum version

June 2011 – the unique piece

The first – and only publicly known – unique Zeitwerk arrived in June 2011 for a good cause. It was conceived to benefit a children’s charity in Singapore, Kidz Horizon Appeal.

The cost of the watch was borne by the family of the late Duncan Wang, an American entrepreneur who resided in Singapore. He passed away in 2009 and his family commissioned several one-off timepieces in the following years, all of which were sold at auction to benefit Kidz Horizon.

The unique Zeitwerk was sold  ]at the 2011 Kidz Horizon gala dinner to a Singapore businessman for 138,000 Singapore dollars (or about US$100,000 at the time), which was sold at about double the retail price of the standard white gold Zeitwerk then.

The 2011 project resulted in the one-off ref. 140.049 with white gold case and grey dial. But the changes went beyond the colour.

Other tweaks include the grey hours and minutes discs, making this one of the three Zeitwerk models (along with the two Luminous editions) that has dark-coloured discs instead of the usual white.

Additionally, a discreet “Made in Germany” was incorporated into the the seconds track at six o’clock, while on the standard Zeitwerk that is engraved on “wing” bridge. And the case back reflects the unique nature of the watch with its rim engraved with “1/1” and “SGP 2011”.

Reference: 140.049 (white gold)
Movement: L043.1
Limited edition: Unique piece

September 2012 – the first Handwerkskunst

After the Luminous and Kidz Horizon, the third very-special Zeitwerk arrived in 2012. All about artisanal craftsmanship, it was the Zeitwerk Handwerkskunst ref. 140.048. The extraordinary decoration, along with a surprise in the movement, meant the production of Handwerkskunst edition was difficult enough to limit the edition to just 30 pieces.

Like other Handwerkskunst watches, this Zeitwerk has its front and back adorned with traditional decorative techniques far more elaborate and nuanced than that found on the standard models.

The solid-gold dial, for example, is hand engraved with tiny dimples – the result of the careful removal of minuscule amounts of gold from the dial surface with a burin. At the same time, the markings on the movement bridges are engraved by hand instead of being done by machine.

Interestingly, the Zeitwerk Handwerkskunst was also equipped with a technical update. The escapement is no ordinary Swiss lever, but the long-forgotten Glashütte lever.

Lange managed to recover the know-how to fabricate this unusual escapement by tapping on a retired employee who was then already in her nineties. That explains why the movement is L043.4 instead of the L043.1 in the regular models.

Reference: 140.048 (platinum)
Movement: L043.4
Limited edition: 30 pieces
Notable feature: Hand-engraved decoration

January 2014 – a small update 

A new reference arrived two years after the Handwerkskunst, but it was only minor update to the styling of an existing model. Launched at SIHH 2014, the Zeitwerk Striking Time was identical to the 2011 model but in a different metal.

Retaining the 44.2 mm case, the new ref. 145.043 had a pink gold case and a silver dial. Following the design codes of the time-only Zeitwerk, the “wing” bridge on the pink gold Striking is untreated German silver.

Like the white gold version, this wasn’t a limited edition and is still in production today. It was also the last iteration of the Striking Time, which means it’s probably due for an update given that the L043.2 within is based on the first-generation calibre.

Reference: 145.043 (pink gold)
Movement: L043.2
Limited edition: No

January 2015 – the first minute repeater

Just a year later, Lange debuted a major new model, the second Zeitwerk with an additional complication.

At SIHH 2015, Lange unveiled the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater, a huge step up from the Striking Time in complexity but not in dimensions – the case of Minute Repeater is only 1 mm thicker than that of the Striking Time. That’s impressive considering meaning the minute repeating L043.5 has 771 parts, 243 parts more than the L043.2 in the Striking Time.

Unlike the Striking Time that indicates time is passing, the Minute Repeater tells the time acoustically. And unlike conventional repeaters, it strikes the time in a 10-minute segments instead of 15-minute segments. In other words, it’s a decimal repeater, making it more intuitive to comprehend when listening to the time.

That said, the Minute Repeater can be distinguished from its simpler brethren even without activating the chimes as the gongs on the dial are arranged differently.

On the Striking Time, the gongs trace the inner circumference of the case, while on the Minute Repeater the gongs follow the outline of the “wing” bridge on the the lower half of the dial.

As is typical for Lange , the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater made its debut in platinum as the ref. 147.025, but as a regular production model.

A limited edition reference of the same, however, was unveiled a few years later (more on that later).

Reference: 147.025 (platinum)
Movement: L043.5
Limited edition: No

2016 – a quiet upgrade

Lange didn’t launch any new Zeitwerk in 2016, but it did make important changes to the existing movement. In fact, according to Robert Hoffman, the head of the Zeitwerk department, Lange has redesigned about 80% of the minute display mechanism.

The mechanical upgrade is obvious to the wearer – the single-digit minutes disc no longer arms itself with a mini jump at the 55-second mark, but it instead jumps to the next digit seamlessly at the top of each minute.

Though a seemingly simple update, it required substantial revision of the movement, including an entirely new set of gears for the constant-force mechanism and minute display.

The original (left) and upgraded mechanism

January 2017 – the first (and possibly last) Decimal Strike

Two years after launching the Minute Repeater, Lange once again turned to the hour striker complication, but with a twist.

The Zeitwerk Decimal Strike ref. 143.050 has a slightly different movement that chimes more frequently. Instead of chiming at every quarter, the L043.7 inside rings every ten minutes.

Notably, the Decimal Strike also boasts other features that make it special. That includes a Honey Gold case that’s a shade between yellow and pink gold, as well as a Handwerkskunst-esque dial featuring tremblage engraving on the “wing” bridge, hammers and bridge for the hammers.

Limited to 100 pieces, the Decimal Strike was a one-off creation, because the movement was conceived specifically for this reference and never made it into regular production, at least for now.

Reference: 143.050 (honey gold)
Movement: L043.7
Limited edition: 100 pieces
Notable feature: Hand-engraved decoration

January 2019 – the second-generation movement

Twenty-nineteen was the tenth anniversary of the Zeitwerk, an occasion marked in an appropriately significant manner. It saw the launch of the most important evolution of the Zeitwerk when Lange finally unveiled the all-new, second-generation movement.

The movement made its debut, not as in the classic time-only guise but instead within the Zeitwerk Date ref. 143.038 in white gold and an unusual grey dial.

Because of the date ring on the edge of the dial, the case was scaled up to large 44.2 mm, or about 2 mm wider than its time-only counterpart.

The most important upgrades of the Zeitwerk Date lie in the new L043.8 movement, which is naturally derived from the original L043.1 but substantially improved.

From a practical standpoint, the most useful upgrade is the extended power reserve, now twice as long at 72 hours. Equally useful is the pusher at four o’clock for the quickset hours.

Reference: 143.038 (white gold)
Movement: L043.8
Limited edition: No

April 2020 – another small update

With the next Zeitwerk Lange returned to a past model. The Zeitwerk Minute Repeater ref. 147.028F became the first model in the range to sport a blue dial.

Unlike the original version in platinum that had a silver dial, the white gold version is a limited edition. Only 30 pieces were made, putting it on par with the Zeitwerk Handwerkskunst as the smallest production run amongst Zeitwerk models (leaving out the unique pieces).

Reference: 147.028F (white gold)
Movement: L043.5
Limited edition: 30 pieces

October 2021 – the second “Lumen”

On October 24, 2021, 27 years since the brand was reestablished, Lange unveiled the first time-only second-generation Zeitwerk. The Zeitwerk Honeygold Lumen ref. 142.055 combines the brand’s proprietary gold alloy honey gold with the “Lumen” treatment.

Like the earlier Zeitwerk Date, the second Lumen has a second-generation movement with a 72-hour power reserve and quickset hours. It’s powered by the  L043.9.

Unlike the original Zeitwerk Luminous that was limited to 100 pieces, the Honey Gold Lumen is limited to 200 pieces, reflecting the appetite for complicated Lange watches.

Reference: 142.055 (honey gold)
Movement: L043.9
Limited edition: 200 pieces
Notable features: Tinted sapphire dial with luminous discs

October 2022 – finally the second-generation time-only

A year after the Honeygold Lumen, Lange finally unveiled the long-expected second-generation time-only Zeitwerk to replace the original from 2009. The new models are the ref. 142.025 in platinum and ref. 142.031 in pink gold.

Notably the pink gold version now sports a black dial instead of silver as is typical for Lange and found on the first-generation Zeitwerk. And the second-generation Zeitwerk is only available in two metals, lacking the white gold and yellow gold variants for now.

The movement within is the L043.6, which indicates that the calibre preceded the L043.7 of the Decimal Strike of 2017. For a detailed look at the second-generation model, check out our in-depth story.

Reference: 142.031 (pink gold) and 140.025 (platinum)
Movement: L043.6
Limited edition: No

Addendum: There have been 10 time-only Zeitwerk references across the two generations, including one “Lumen” edition from each generation, as well as a Handwerkskunst. 

Correction October 30, 2022: There have been seven limited edition Zeitwerks, instead of six as stated in an earlier version of the article. 

Having delved into the origins, concept, and design of the Grand Seiko Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon SLGT003, we now turn to the granularity of its technical qualities. The Kodo is first and foremost a chronometer in the vein of the watches that lay behind the founding of Grand Seiko (GS).

A brand focused on precision timekeeping since its establishment in 1960, the opening act of GS in its first decade was competing in observatory chronometer trials at Neuchatel and Geneva – and winning, much to the horror of the Swiss. Several decades later the brand is still pursuing perfect accuracy in both mechanical, quartz, and hybrid formats, most notably with the novel Spring Drive.

The Kodo powered by the cal. 9ST1 is the latest, and arguably greatest, endeavour in chronometric precision from GS. But it is like no GS that has come before it. Rather than rely on modern technology and materials, the Kodo instead revisits traditional mechanical solutions, namely as the constant-force mechanism and tourbillon. Combining the two in a wristwatch mark a milestone for GS, or any Japanese watchmaker for that matter.

To understand the mechanical systems within the Kodo, we must first understand the fundamental challenges in precision timekeeping. The factors that influence precision fall into two categories, the first related to the barrel or energy supply, and the second, gravity’s effect on the balance or oscillator.

Energy challenges

The barrel is the source of energy in a conventional mechanical movement. It’s essentially a cylinder that houses the mainspring, which is a coiled length of metal that stores energy when wound up tightly. While it is an effective energy source, the mainspring nevertheless has a weakness: it delivers steadily declining torque as it winds down and the coils of the spring slacken.

The lower torque means a less energy for the oscillator, resulting in a shorter swing of the balance, more precisely described as a drop in amplitude. With a shorter distance travelled, the time needed for the balance to complete an oscillation diminishes, so the movement will beat faster or at a higher frequency.

That said, readers who have come across the term isochronism – the property of maintaining the same frequency despite changing amplitude – might wonder why it doesn’t apply here. While an ordinary balance largely operates according to this phenomenon, it does not do so perfectly because of inconsistencies in material and fabrication.

That is why watches can keep relatively good time with diminishing torque, varying only seconds each day for instance, but never perfectly. Modern materials science and manufacturing technology does help with maintain isochronism, but such innovations are invisible to the observer.

Traditional solutions of the sort that watch enthusiasts revere focus instead on addressing the root cause of the problem, which is the variation in torque of the mainspring. This approach certainly requires mechanical intervention, which is where constant-force mechanisms come in.

There are two types of constant-force mechanism. The first works directly with the power supply, like a fusee and chain, stack freed, or simply a stop-work, while the second sits along the going train, such as a remontoir. The former evens out the torque delivered by the barrel regardless of the mainspring’s state of wind, while the latter relies on a buffer spring to store and deliver small, even portions of energy to the balance at fixed intervals.

An example from Swiss watchmaking that incorporates both types of constant force mechanisms, a chain and fusee as well as a remontoir, the Ferdinand Berthoud FB 2RE

While the chain and fusee is magnificent, it is bulky and inevitably occupies half the movement. In fact, it takes up so much space that it only made it into a wristwatch about three decades ago.

In contrast, the remontoir is a more elegant solution that’s compact and more effective. Controlling the power flow right before the balance ensures all errors that occur along the gear train are dealt with, which is why the late George Daniels described it as “by far the best method of smoothing the power supply” in his treatise Watchmaking.

Unsurprisingly given GS’s penchant for refined engineering, the Kodo is equipped with a remontoir, specifically one that’s integrated into the tourbillon regulator, an unorthodox construction that we explained below.

The twin mainsprings of the Kodo are visible below the sub-dial for the time – together they provide more stable torque than a single barrel, though not with the exactitude of a chain and fusee

Newton’s Law

The second primary source of errors in a mechanical movement is gravity as it interferes with the oscillation of a balance depending to a degree that depends on the position of the watch. This exacerbates the inherent imperfections of a balance assembly that arise from manufacturing or assembly oversights.

As we have already discussed this topic at at-length, we will skip the problems and instead cover only the solutions. One of the best-known is the centuries-old trick of constantly changing the position of the balance average out such errors, otherwise known as the tourbillon.

The Kodo incorporates not one but two systems to tackle inaccuracy, a remontoir inside a tourbillon. Both sit on the same axis with power flowing from the mainspring to the remontoir and then the tourbillon.

One of the twin barrels inside the Kodo. Image – Grand Seiko

The Kodo is equipped with twin barrels that operate in parallel, meaning both unwind simultaneously. This set-up typically delivers more energy per period of time than a single mainspring.

According to Mr Kawauchiya, double barrels set up in parallel typically have shorter running times than the twin barrels arranged in series. But the twin barrels in the cal. 9ST1, he adds, are notable for offering a relatively long running time of 72 hours.

As an aside, why do the best modern chronometers from the likes of Grand Seiko and Omega keep excellent time without any fancy, traditional mechanisms? The Grand Seiko Standard that entry-level mechanical GS watches has to meet is within +5.0/-3.0 seconds a day – and these are watches with no compilations that cost under US$10,000.

Keeping good time affordably, the 9S63 movement found in GS models priced around US$7,500

One reason is that the movements are simple and only require relatively low tolerance in fabrication and assembly, which allows for more efficient production while maintaining quality.

Another factor is the science of modelling and manufacturing has improved enough that impressive accuracy is possible with a standard Swiss-lever construction.

Finally, such everyday watches are typically automatic, allowing the mainspring to remain almost fully wound at all times, eliminating the decline in torque seen in a manual-wind watch that’s only wound every day or two.

Still, anachronistic technology makes for an impressive object, which is exactly what the Kodo is.

One of the rare few

While tourbillon wristwatches are now common, few are equipped with a constant-force mechanism and even fewer have both a tourbillon and constant-force mechanism.

Arguably the most famous example equipped with both is the F.P. Journe Tourbillon Remontoir d’Egalite. Mr Journe’s concise invention utilises a thin blade spring to store and release energy to the tourbillon cage every second.

But there are also other interpretations of the concept that are more elaborate and perhaps more elegant, most notably integrating the remontoir into the tourbillon. Past examples include the magnificent Double-Wheel Remontoir Tourbillon pocket watch made by Derek Pratt in 1997, which has not one but two remontoir escapements in the tourbillon. More recently, and more usual coming from a mainstream brand, is the IWC Portugieser Sidérale Scafusia that combines a constant-force tourbillon with a variety of astronomical complications.

Finally there’s the Andreas Strehler Trans-Axial Tourbillon that most closely resembles the Kodo in its approach. Both rely on a remontoir that’s not only within the tourbillon cage, but also shares the axis of the tourbillon, resulting in an impressive construction that’s vertically symmetrical.

The F.P. Journe remontoir with its thin blade spring

The twin escape wheels and remontoir of the Derek Pratt pocket watch, which uses spiral remontoir spring instead of linear blade spring as found in the F.P. Journe. Image – Timothy Treffry

Why Kodo

The watches mentioned above show that there are precedents to the Kodo, albeit very, very few. From a historical perspective, the Kodo might not be as significant as the Derek Pratt pocket watch – yet since GS is still establishing itself as a serious maker of complications – but its fundamentals are truly excellent.

From the perspective of the brand itself, the Kodo is a milestone for GS and indeed historically significant for the brand. It boasts multiple firsts for GS: tourbillon, constant-force escapement, as well as open-worked movement. But the Kodo is not just regurgitating ideas from the past. Instead it Kodo manages to distinguish itself thanks to several innovations not found in other watches.

The first innovation are the nested, double carriages, one each for the tourbillon and remontoir. Innermost is the tourbillon cage, which is conventional in function and rotates in tiny steps as expected, eight steps a second to be precise.

But the remontoir cage is unusual. It encloses the tourbillon cage and advances once every second, so it doubles up as a deadbeat seconds indicator. But it is definitely more impressive visually than a seconds hand because the entire three-armed cage springs forward each second accompanied by the confident tick of the remontoir wheel.

An extremely complex construction with a triple three-arm set up (for a total of nine arms): the outermost trio forms the three-armed bridge, and the innermost set of arms is the tourbillon cage, while the remontoir cage is sandwiched between the two

The second innovation is actually hinted at by its name, 鼓動 or kodo, which is “heartbeat” in Japanese. As with all remontoirs, the remontoir in the Kodo creates a ticking sound similar to the tick-tock of an escapement when it releases every second.

But the cal. 9ST1 actually emits two perfectly synchronised pulses at a steady pace – these arise from the remontoir and escapement respectively – creating a rhythmic beat. The fact that the escapement beats at the relatively high frequency of 4 Hz is even more impressive, since most tourbillon movements run at a lower frequency to minimise energy consumption.

Synchronising the beats might seem like a simple task but it is a bona fide feat of micro-engineering since any inconsistency in the frequency will result in the rhythm slightly, but noticeably, out of sync. The perfect rhythm demonstrates one of the Kodo’s strength, an ultra-precise construction made possible by parts fabricated with cutting-edge technology such as ultraviolet lithography (UV-LIGA).

The high level of technology used in manufacturing the movement parts set the Kodo apart from comparably complicated timepieces that are often made the traditional way – and this is a good thing, especially when considering the subsequently artisanal decoration of the cal. 9ST1.

“I realised in the early prototype stage that it was not easy to make the escapement and remontoir tick together in an exact 16th note rhythm,” explains Takuma Kawauchiya, the designer of cal. 9ST1, “Slight eccentricities of the gears and their axes, or clearances between the axis and jewel holes would cause the constant force, which should rotate once for every eight times the escapements vibrates, to instead rotate once every seven or nine times instead, making it difficult to hear a clean 16th beat.”

The solution, says Mr Kawauchiya, is a stopper as well as extremely precise tolerances. “The stopper slides over the small teeth of the stop wheel eight times, and to ensure that the stop wheel and stopper disengage exactly on the eighth time required strict tolerances for the parts would not be required in the mass production of normal movements.”

Putting it together, however, is a painstaking process. “During final assembly, the movement is placed in a quiet room with no one else present and I listen to the ticking for one minute,” says Mr Kawauchiya, “If there is even one inaccurate beat, the stopper position is adjusted slightly, and I continue listening until a clean 16th beat is achieved.”

“Rotating the stopper is a painstaking process that can damage the parts of the carriage, but the joy of overcoming this risk and achieving a beautiful 16th note is exceptional,” adds Mr Kawauchiya with pride.

The balance wheel of the Kodo. Image – Grand Seiko

Two halves

Mechanical complexity aside, the Kodo has a beautifully symmetrical movement, as is often the case for tourbillon movements with a constant force mechanism.

The cal. 9ST1 is divided into two halves with the vertical line of symmetry running straight through the dial at 12 o’clock and the constant-force tourbillon at six o’clock. Each half houses a barrel, with each barrel accompanied by a different but visually comparable set of gears, namely planetary gears for the power reserve mechanism on the left, and intermediate wheels for time setting on the right. 

According to Mr Kawauchiya, the symmetrical arrangement of the wheel train layout was, unsurprisingly, a deliberate choice of the development team from the start. But the positions of the gears serve another purpose.

“We also wanted to balance the appearance of the complex, multi-layered structure of the constant-force tourbillon carriage… by giving a multi-layered structure to the barrel as well,” explains Mr Kawauchiya, “After much consideration of what to layer, we came to the conclusion that it would be a planetary train for the power reserve mechanism and the intermediate wheels for time setting.”

“For me, a three-dimensional effect of a movement is one of the major attractions of mechanical watches and I believe looking at a pocket watch is one of those joys. However, it is quite a difficult task to create the three-dimensional looks of a pocket watch in a wristwatch,” says Mr Kawauchiya.

“In order to achieve this, we created height differences between the gears in the power reserve train… while the gears have chamfered spokes and teeth to prevent them from looking thin and monotonous, and even the MEMS gears [made via LIGA] have minute steps in the spokes to create a three-dimensional effect,” He continues, “That kept the overall thickness of the movement as thin as possible, while creating as much of a three-dimensional effect as possible within that limited thickness.”

Overview of the constant-force tourbillon

The cal. 9ST1 of the Kodo is certainly an impressive and complicated construction, and one with few peers. But each it operates on the traditional principles, so it is most easily understood one section at a time.

The fundamentals of the cal. 9ST1 are similar to that of a standard movement, which means it has barrels, gear train, and escapement. The major differences between the cal. 9ST1 and an ordinary movement lie at the end of the gear train, or more precisely at the fourth (or last) wheel that typically drives a seconds hand. Instead of a fourth wheel, the cal. 9ST1 has a remontoir wheel.

Power flows from the barrels through the gear train to the remontoir wheel, which is where it gets interesting. The remontoir acts like a typical fourth wheel, meaning the remontoir wheel makes a full revolution every minute. But unlike a conventional fourth wheel that moves forward in an almost-smooth motion, the remontoir wheel advances one step every second. As a result, it is actually a double-function complication.

The Kodo logically makes use of that. A three-armed remontoir bridge is fixed on the top of the remontoir wheel, allowing it to act as jumping seconds indicator, with the ruby mounted on one of the arms serving as the pointer. It’s worth mentioning that the wheel and bridge forms the entirety of a remontoir cage. In a typical tourbillon watch, the gear train drives the tourbillon cage, but here it drives the remontoir cage.

Since the remontoir cage sits where the tourbillon cage would normally be, the tourbillon has to fit within the remontoir cage. Remember also that the remontoir drives the tourbillon within it, but to understand the connection between the two, we have to start with how the remontoir works.

The key to the constant-force ability of a remontoir is the spiral buffer spring known as the remontoir spring. Essentially a tiny, secondary mainspring, the remontoir spring winds down quickly and as it does so propels the parts sitting above it.

Logically, the tourbillon cage sits directly above the remontoir spring. Each unwinding of the remontoir spring discharges a constant amount of energy, such that the tourbillon is driven by a consistent dose of power each second, thus making it a constant-force tourbillon. And because the remontoir spring is directly under the tourbillon cage – both rotate on the same axis – it is also a co-axial, constant-force tourbillon.

The tourbillon cage (red) is nested within the remontoir cage (blue)

How it really works

The basics of the cal. 9ST1 are clear: the gear train ends with the remontoir, and the remontoir in turn drives the tourbillon. But it is a complicated and delicate system with much mechanical ingenuity to appreciate.

The fundamental element of the assembly is the tourbillon. Remember that it is a mechanism designed to complete one revolution every minute, during which the escape wheel, pallet fork, as well as the balance wheel are rotating along with the cage. This constantly changes the position of the balance wheel, thus averaging out errors induced by gravity.

The Kodo, however, adds a remontoir into the mix. Here tthe remontoir is locked in a feedback loop with the tourbillon. The remontoir spring, and hence the remontoir cage, releases in one-second steps in a process that’s regulated by the tourbillon. In other words, though the tourbillon is driven by the remontoir, it conversely controls the periodic release of the remontoir.

Both the tourbillon and remontoir are co-axial, a set up that eliminates the need for an intermediate wheel in between, which reduces power loss through friction.

The remontoir spring unwinds at a controlled rate that is dependent on the escapement within the tourbillon. If the escapement were absent, then the remontoir will release instantaneously instead of once every second.

The operation of the remontoir lies in the fact that it’s essentially a miniature mainspring with enough energy to drive the tourbillon for about one second. And that’s exactly why the remontoir is a constant-force mechanism – the spring delivers the same, small dose of energy to the escapement within the tourbillon, so collectively the remontoir and escapement form the constant-force tourbillon system.

Now that we understand how remontoir spring powers the tourbillon, it’s time to look at how the spring is recharged. Attached to the base of the tourbillon cage is a C-shaped steel ring with a protruding arm, which rotates along with the tourbillon cage.

At the end of the protruding arm is a synthetic ruby shaped like a pallet jewel. Next to it is a five-spoked, white ceramic wheel that is blocked by the pallet jewel of the arm. Together, they form a secondary escapement with the jewel acting as a blocking mechanism for the remontoir.

As the C-shaped ring rotates along with the tourbillon cage, the tip of the jewel slides past one tooth of the ceramic wheel, releasing the remontoir spring, allowing the remontoir cage to rotate forward one step, until the next tooth of the ceramic wheel contacts the pallet jewel. This takes place at one0second intervals – in other words, the remontoir is released after the tourbillon cage advances six degrees clockwise, which is eight “ticks” of the 4 Hz escapement.

As mentioned earlier, since the remontoir cage is constructed to recharge every second, its motion allows it to function as a jumping seconds indicator. This double function is common for such remontoir mechanisms, but the Kodo executes the idea in a unique manner as the remontoir cage is co-axial with the tourbillon cage.

Other interesting features

While the constant-force mechanism and tourbillon are the heading features of the Kodo’s cal. 9ST1, it actually incorporates several interesting – and practical – features.

One is the hacking function of the tourbillon that’s constructed in an unusual way. A conventional tourbillon-hacking mechanism – a rare complication for a tourbillon – typically relies on a flexible stop lever that contacts the balance wheel and halts everything instantaneously.

But the Kodo has the hacking lever contacting the lower ring of the tourbillon cage, which allows the balance wheel within the cage to oscillate for a few more cycles before it eventually stops.

On its face, this method is not the most impressive from a visual perspective since the tourbillon does not stop instantaneously. However, stopping the carriage is an uncommon approach because of its complexity; stopping the cage abruptly while allowing the balance to oscillate can potentially damage the escapement.

Implementing this hacking mechanism required finesse in both design and execution. According to Mr Kawauchiya, “The magnitude of the force applied to the carriage during hacking, however, is actually very small because the frictional force required to stop the carriage rotation is calculated and the spring force of the lever is designed to stop the carriage with the minimum necessary safety ratio.”

“Therefore, the force used to hacking the carriage does not damage any components,” he explains, “However, since the spring force of the lever must be strictly controlled, the spring is slightly bent by hand during assembly to fine-tune the spring force… The amount of movement of the spring tip is so tiny that it requires very delicate work.”

“Kodo stops the rotation of the tourbillon carriage by moving the spring tangentially to the carriage, rather than radially – when the spring is disengaged, a slight counterclockwise rotational force is applied to the carriage to ensure the restarting of the tourbillon,” continues Mr awauchiya, “This method is an application of a mechanism that was originally found in calibre 45 and the stopwatch developed by Seiko for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.”

Another notable feature is the grand sonnerie-style winding click, which is symmetrical just like the twin barrels that flank the click. A classical and elegant approach to the winding click, the grand sonnerie-style winding click is rarely found in modern watchmaking and is being used for the first time by Grand Seiko.

(A detailed explanation of the grand sonnerie-style winding click can be found here.)

The grand sonnerie-style (right), with one of the sharply open-worked barrel ratchet wheels just adjacent

As with all of the Kodo, the grand sonnerie-style winding click was the result of purposeful design. “There are three reasons for adopting the grand sonnerie-style winding click,” explains Mr Kawauchiya, “First, for functional reasons, a winding click that can distribute the force between two click springs is suitable for the high torque of the twin barrels in the Kodo.”

“Secondly, Kodo is all about symmetrical layout of the movement as a whole, and it was ideal for the intermediate wheel connecting the two ratchet wheels to integrate the function of a click,” he continues. “Lastly, as you pointed out, we believe that the grand sonnerie-style winding click is both traditional and very beautiful, and we wanted to try this style, which has never been used by Seiko or Grand Seiko before.”

Also apparent is the fact that the barrels are designed to slip to prevent overwinding, a feature borrowed from automatic movements. This can be deduced visually as there is a lack of a distinct recoil mechanism on the ratchet wheel click – a feature otherwise required to prevent the high torque spike from a fully-wound barrel.

Mr Kawauchiya mentions there is an additional benefit of a slipping mainspring relating to efficiency: “It allows us to design a smaller amount of recoil for the ratchet, which means minimum rotation of the winding stem and crown is needed to activate the winding click, thereby reducing loss of energy due to recoil during winding.”

“Since the movement has two barrels to be wound by hand, we designed it to minimise the loss during winding,” Mr Kawauchiya continues, “At the same time, we wanted to create a pleasant winding sound and clicking feel, so we changed the design of the click found in the T0 [concept movement] to the grande sonnerie-style in the Kodo.”

Accuracy

Since the cal. 9ST1  has not one but two mechanisms for precision timekeeping, it is natural to compare its performance with other GS movements, especially the brand’s historical pinnacle of timekeeping achievement, V.F.A. or “Very Fine Adjusted”.

Vintage V.F.A movements were accurate to within a minute per month, while modern V.F.A. movements are regulated to achieve a maximum daily deviation of +3/-1 seconds. On the other hand, the Kodo accurate to +5/-3 seconds a day. Why the disparity?

I discussed this with GS representatives at W&W. The designers of the cal. 9ST1, including Mr Kawauchiya, explained the rationale with two key reasons.

The first lies with the regulating process behind each type of movement. Regulating a V.F.A. movement and cal. 9ST1 of the Kodo are entirely different processes.

A V.F.A. movement is essentially a top-performing version of a standard calibre like the cal. 9S85, which means it is selected from a large pool of already-regulated standards movements and then further regulated by a specially-trained watchmaker to conform to an even tighter standard.

But the same approach is impossible with the cal. 9ST1, since only two dozen examples of the movement will be made – and that includes prototypes. There are simply not enough of them.

The second, and perhaps more crucial, reason is the length of testing. The mean daily rate of the Kodo is measured twice during during testing, at the 24- and 48-hour marks. In contrast, a V.F.A. movement is tested only after 24 hours of running.

Accuracy is measured over a longer period for the Kodo, which is logical considering the movement incorporates a constant-force mechanism that is meant to optimise timekeeping over prolonged periods. Even though the Kodo is regulated to +5/-3 seconds a day like a standard GS movement, it is more impressive because of the difficulty in achieving the same accuracy over a duration that’s twice as long as the standard testing period.

“Regarding Kodo, our priority is different from that of V.F.A.,” says Keiko Naruse, a senior marketing manager at Seiko Watch Corporation, “Kodo aims to provide the stable accuracy for longer periods thanks to constant force and tourbillon.”

She adds, “Theoretically, a V.F.A.-accurate watch with constant force and tourbillon could be made by following the V.F.A. approach, but when determining the product specifications for Kodo, we prioritised stability over a long period of time in consideration of actual use for the wearer.”

That aside, I believe that it is far more difficult to regulate a movement as complicated as the cal. 9ST1 as compared to an ordinary movement. The extra parts at the end of the gear train in the cal. 9ST1 might, rather counterintuitively, hinder the pursuit better accuracy due to friction, but there’s no question that the cal. 9ST1 has the upper hand over its simpler brethren over longer periods thanks to the remontoir.

Concluding thoughts

Intriguingly, Grand Seiko reports that the Kodo runs within +5/-1 seconds per day in real life testing on a wrist, as opposed to +10/-1 seconds per day for a generic 4 Hz movement (and +8/-1 seconds per day for a generic high-beat, 5 Hz movement.

With that in mind, it is fair to conclude that GS is being extremely conservative in the accuracy promises being made for the Kodo. If I ever lived out a fantasy and had the Kodo on the wrist for a few weeks, I am certain it would keep time much better than the stated rating.

With that mind, it would probably have been more effective to announce a superior timekeeping standard for the Kodo, at least from a marketing perspective. That said, relatively conservative marketing claims are typical of GS’s modest approach despite its very fine products. And who knows, perhaps a more elaborate testing regime is in the pipeline.

Still, leaving aside the numbers, the Kodo is an impressive and highly complex object. It is clear that every single element of the movement as well as the case has been carefully considered and then executed to a high level. Even thought GS has never produced a watch like this before, it has managed to surpass even some of the most experienced competition.

Key facts and price

Grand Seiko Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon
Ref. SLGT003

Diameter: 43.8 mm
Height: 12.9 mm
Material: 950 platinum and Brilliant Hard Titanium
Crystal: Sapphire
Water resistance: 10 bar

Movement: Cal. 9ST1
Functions: Hours, minutes, dead-beat seconds, tourbillon with constant-force mechanism 
Winding: Manual wind
Frequency: 28,800 vibrations per hour (4 Hz)
Power reserve: 72 hours

Strap: Calfskin strap with platinum folding buckle, and additional double-sided crocodile strap

Limited edition: 20 pieces
Availability: Starting October 2022 from Grand Seiko’s retailers and boutiques
Price: US$350,000; or 40 million Japanese yen before tax

For more, visit grand-seiko.com.

Pilot’s watches, and specifically military-inspired pilot’s watches, are a pillar of the modern, luxury watch industry. Dozens of brands, notably IWC, Breitling, Bell & Ross, Bremont, and Yema, have made military aviation a core theme of their image. So it’s somewhat ironic that today’s elite military pilots don’t wear mechanical watches in the cockpit.

A recent survey of pilots at MCAS Miramar, the airbase once home to the prestigious “Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor” programme – better known as TOPGUN – revealed that not a single pilot was wearing a mechanical watch. Instead, military pilots increasingly wear  smartwatches designed specifically for aviators like the Garmin D2 that can monitor oxygen levels and act as a backup navigation system.

Modern pilot’s watches made by luxury brands are more like “fan fiction”; a designer’s dream of what might have been. But this wasn’t always the case. Mechanical watches were once state-of-the-art technology and vital instruments for navigators and pilots before being rendered obsolete by quartz technology.

This is the story of how the urgency of the Cold War gave the humble balance wheel one last chance to patrol the skies.

The jet-shaped counterweight on the IWC Top Gun SFTI calls to mind the airplane-tipped chronograph minutes hand of Cold War-era pilot’s watches like the Tutima 798

A brief history of the pilot’s watch

Pilot’s watches have been around for almost as long as there have been pilots. Wristwatches served a number of functions in early cockpits, but their most critical role was to aid in navigation. The first pilots navigated by simply looking down at what was beneath them, but once pilots started to fly greater distances – particularly over bodies of water with no landmarks – navigators increasingly relied on dead reckoning and celestial navigation, techniques that required comparing instrument readings with a reference time.

Introduced in 1929 by Longines, the Weems Second-Setting watch was the first purpose-built navigational pilot’s watch. It was designed by US Navy officer Philip Van Horn Weems to enable pilots to synchronise their watches with a radio time signal to improve their location accuracy while performing celestial navigation. This concept was further refined by Charles Lindbergh, who used the Second-Setting watch as the basis for the Hour Angle watch he developed with Longines in 1931.

A modern remake of the Weems Second-Setting watch, the first purpose-built pilot’s watch. Image – Longines

In WWII and the post-war years, military tactics began to dictate the functionality for pilot’s watches. Chronographs became the new norm, with numerous manufacturers in Switzerland, France, and Germany producing watches for military contracts. The Type 20 for the French air and naval forces is one of the most famous examples.

By the early 1980s, increasingly sophisticated inertial navigation systems had made dead reckoning and celestial navigation obsolete, but pilot’s chronographs were still considered vital for coordinating mission operations.

At the same time, electronic quartz watches were rapidly eclipsing their mechanical counterparts for specialist applications like aviation and diving where absolute precision and reliability were required. But history would intervene to give the mechanical pilot’s watch one last hurrah.

The last mechanical pilot’s watch 

In 1982 there were still no analog quartz chronographs, but the West German Luftwaffe needed to equip its pilots who were supporting NATO’s policy of containment to prevent the spread of communism. That year, Doomsday clock reached four minutes to midnight, the closest it had been to nuclear catastrophe in almost 30 years, so the German fighter pilots needed watches quickly.

The air force developed criteria for the perfect pilot’s chronograph and solicited bids from local manufacturers. A year later, the contract was awarded to a handful of German watchmakers, including Tutima, Arctos, and Tengler.

As a result, Tutima debuted the reference 798 chronograph in 1984 and quickly won another contract to supply not only the German air force, but other NATO members as well – explaining why the 798 is often referred to as the “NATO” chronograph.

West German pilots received training in the United States at sites like Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, and supersonic American fighter jets like the McDonnell Douglas F-4F Phantom II (pictured above) were delivered to the West German air force to patrol the skies along the Iron Curtain. Image – Tutima

The timeline is significant because it means that the Tutima watches built for the NATO contract in 1984 were probably the last true purpose-built mechanical pilot’s watches. If the procurement process had started any later, I think it’s unlikely a mechanical movement would have been chosen.

Consider the timing. In early 1980s, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche and IWC together developed a watch for the West German Navy’s Kampfschwimmer, an elite combat diver unit equivalent to the US Navy SEALs. The resulting Ocean 2000 replaced the automatic Blancpain Fifty Fathoms dating from the 1960s that was in use up to that time. The Ocean 2000 was delivered with both mechanical and quartz movements, though the latter was more numerous.

And in 1983, the British Royal Navy replaced its stock of automatic dive watches, including the famous Rolex refs. 5513 and 5517 “Milsub”, with quartz dive watches from CWC. When Seiko finally introduced the world’s first analog quartz chronograph that same year, it was quickly adopted as standard issue by the British Royal Air Force in 1984.

The Tutima Military Chronograph ref. 798 was selected by NATO in 1984. Image – @breguet_numerals

So if quartz watches were more reliable and precise, why does the 798 have a mechanical movement? This article in WatchTime suggests the reason was battery life. “[The government’s] specs required that the watch have a mechanical movement since there was no telling when a quartz watch battery would die.”

But I have doubts about this justification. If battery life was a concern at the time, I doubt the West German and British forces would have been comfortable issuing quartz dive watches to their elite divers in 1983.

Instead, I think it’s more likely that NATO, which had more important issues to focus on, simply reused the specifications developed by the West German government in 1982, before any quartz alternatives existed. I’ve searched the digitised NATO archives but haven’t been able to locate the original tender documents, so this is just a theory. Either way, the future would belong to quartz.

A Cold War relic 

The Tutima 798 was introduced in 1984. That same year, the watch was selected by NATO as standard issue for pilots and assigned NATO Stock Number (NSN) “6645-12-194-8642”. More instrument than accessory, the NSN indicates the 798 falls under the category of “Instruments and Laboratory Equipment”.

Military-issued 798s were stamped by issuing authority and the NSN. The example at the top left was issued to the West German Air Force, while the example at the top right was issued to the US Air Force. The inscription “Tutima W-Germany” indicates the watches were produced prior to German reunification in 1990. Later examples were marked “Tutima Germany.” Image – Tutima

The 798 is a large watch at 43 mm across and almost 14.6 mm thick, but it wears well due to its short lugs. Wearability is also improved as all of the case edges are rounded to prevent it from snagging on clothing or safety harnesses.

The minimalist dial and short, hooded lugs were clearly influenced by the Orfina Porsche Design Chronograph 1 of the early 1970s. Orfina was the first brand to apply a matte black coating to the watch case (a delicate powder coating and not PVD as widely believed) but Tutima instead opted for a more durable bead-blasted, “pearled” finish.

The Military Chronograph. Image – @breguet_numerals

The dial of the 798 was designed to be an extension of cockpit instrumentation. The hands and dial markers were coated in radioactive tritium so they would glow in the dark, and, in the interest of maximising legibility, non mission-critical indications, like the tachymeter scale, were eliminated.

While the omission of a tachymeter scale may surprise some chronograph purists, it’s a reflection of the purpose-built nature of the watch. For reasons of legibility, most chronograph tachymeters max out at 500mph, which is below the cruising speed of the both the F-4F Phantom II and Panavia Tornado fighter jets used by the West German air force.

Originally designed for German-speaking pilots, the watch naturally displays the day of the week in German. Image – @breguet_numerals

To aid pilots in the event of a water landing, the case was water resistant to an impressive 100 m (later increased to 200 m). By way of comparison, the modern Omega Speedmaster Professional and IWC Top Gun SFTI are only rated to 50 m and 60 m, respectively.

Water resistance is par for the course for any serious tool watch, but a pilot is more likely to experience a rapid loss of pressure than a rapid ingress of water. For this reason, the sapphire crystal in the 798 is secured to withstand low pressure, preventing it popping off at altitudes up to 50,000 feet; an uncommon safety feature.

Finally, Tutima added what has become the signature touch of the 798 – integrated pushers. Tutima claims the integrated pushers make it easier to operate the chronograph wearing gloves. Personally, I’m skeptical; in my experience they’re no more or less easy to operate using gloves than a chronograph with ordinary pushers.

The integrated pushers give the 798 a distinctive case profile. Image – @breguet_numerals

That said, the captive integrated pushers work brilliantly as a piece of industrial design, giving the watch a bold and distinctive look that differentiates the 798 from similar watches like the Sinn 157, Orfina Porsche Design 717x, as well as the Tengler and Arctos BUND chronographs.

Individually, its features are hardly revolutionary innovations. But taken together, I believe they represent the pinnacle of mechanical pilot’s watch design and functionality.

The Lemania 5100: a legend within a legend

The Tutima 798 is powered by the Lemania 5100, an integrated automatic chronograph with a vertical clutch and stamped column wheel, along with a large balance running at 4 Hz that produces ample balance power.

The movement’s key feature is its central minutes counter, which displays both elapsed seconds and elapsed minutes on central hands. This feature provides a big step up for legibility compared to most chronograph movements, which display elapsed minutes on a 30-minute sub-dial.

The Lemania 5100 displays elapsed seconds and elapsed minutes on central hands, making it much easier to read the chronograph at a glance. The airplane-tipped elapsed minutes hand has become an iconic design from this era. Image – @breguet_numerals

Introduced in 1974 as a replacement for the self-winding cal. 1340, the cal. 5100 has been used by numerous brands, including Omega, Heuer, Tutima, Sinn, Orfina, Fortis, Paul Picot, and Alain Silberstein.

In many ways, the Lemania 5100 is the mechanical equivalent of the Casio G-Shock. Designed for mass production, reliability, and durability, the cal. 5100 boasted wider tolerances and several components made of Delrin, a polymer material similar to nylon that has a low friction coefficient and is highly resistant to long-term wear. Lemania’s pioneering use of polymer components to help the movement absorb shocks resembles Casio’s approach to the same problem nine years later, though Casio went further, using polymer cladding to create a protective outer case as well.

Vertical clutch pioneer

While the Lemania 5100 is rightly famous for shock resistance and reliability, it should also be famous for something else: it was the first Swiss vertical clutch chronograph in almost 40 years.

While the vertical clutch has become the norm for modern chronographs, it was highly unusual when Lemania introduced it in 1974. In fact, the 5100 was the first vertical clutch chronograph movement produced in Switzerland since the short-lived, hand-wound Pierce cal. 130/136 of the 1930s, and the first Swiss-made, automatic vertical clutch chronograph movement ever.

While Seiko deserves credit for picking things up where Pierce left off and for bringing the vertical clutch back into vogue in 1969 with the cal. 6139, I still find it significant that the 5100 was the first Swiss movement in decades to utilise a mechanism that we now take for granted.

The Death of the 798

The death of the 798 is a tale that should sound familiar to anyone who has kept track of the fortunes of the mechanical watch industry over the past 40 years.

Designed and put into production during the last gasp of the pre-quartz era, the 798 was doomed from the start. Multifunction quartz watches like the Breitling Aerospace, Casio G-Shock, and Timex Ironman were becoming dominant amongst professionals, offering better precision, increased functionality, and lower prices. Unsurprisingly, the 798 failed to find commercial success even when it was eventually released to the public and remained a niche product for its entire production run.

Image – @breguet_numerals

The death blow came when Lemania stopped making the cal. 5100. As the market for mechanical luxury watches began to take shape, Lemania started to concentrate on the manufacture of tourbillons and other high-end mechanical movements. In 1992, Lemania was acquired by Breguet, accelerating the company’s move upmarket.

In the early 2000s, Lemania decided the time was right to cease production of the cal. 5100 entirely. Tutima and Sinn were amongst the few customers for the movement, while quartz watches had become so reliable and inexpensive that it no longer made sense for military and police units to continue issuing mechanical chronographs to their personnel.

Tutima and Sinn continued to produce 5100-powered watches for a few more years until they exhausted their stocks of these movements. Both brands subsequently reverse-engineered the key features of the cal. 5100 by modifying the Valjoux 7750 to give it central display functionality, but these movements were installed in watches clearly targeted at luxury watch consumers who simply wanted the same look and feel as the originals, being simply too expensive for military use.

The Lemania factory in Le Chenit today, now dedicated to producing movements only for its parent Breguet. Image – Breguet

Summary

While the modern luxury watch industry is littered with military aviation-themed mechanical watches, none are part of the official-issue kit or considered vital equipment. Some brands like IWC, Breitling, and Bremont have signed licensing deals that enable them to make watches bearing the insignias of elite military units but these watches are not meant to be professional instruments. Instead, they are largely luxury products marketed to civilians, though each of those brands do produce specific models available only to eligible servicemen and women.

Image – @breguet_numerals

In my view, the Tutima 798 occupies a unique position in watchmaking history as arguably the last pilot’s watch designed in the era when mechanical watches were still vital pieces of equipment for use in life-and-death environments. If the procurement process had started a year later, I think it’s likely the West German government, and subsequently NATO, would have reached the same conclusion as the British and opted for quartz chronographs from Seiko, in which case the 798 would never have existed. This quirk of history bestows these watches with a unique kind of authenticity that is impossible to recreate.

The author’s watch was captured by watch photographer @breguet_numerals.

]]> https://watchesbysjx.com/2022/07/patek-philippe-service-centre-gmt-singapore.html Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:21 +0000 https://watchesbysjx.com/?p=139087 Patek Philippe is one of the most revered watch brands but an outlier amongst its peers in relying almost entirely on independent retailers to sell its watches. Of the hundreds of Patek Philippe points-of-sale around the world, the brand owns just three. But the converse is true for its after-sales service where the brand is […]]]>

Patek Philippe is one of the most revered watch brands but an outlier amongst its peers in relying almost entirely on independent retailers to sell its watches. Of the hundreds of Patek Philippe points-of-sale around the world, the brand owns just three.

But the converse is true for its after-sales service where the brand is almost entirely vertically integrated. Patek Philippe will soon own and operate ten service centres in key cities around the world, backed up with four of its own watchmaking institutes. The Geneva watchmaker does this to fulfil its pledge of being able to repair and maintain “all timepieces ever made by Patek Philippe since production began in 1839”.

Consolidation and consistency

In pursuit of a uniformly high standard of service across the world, Patek Philippe is in the process of consolidating its service network from a peak of 59 service centres worldwide, some of which were run by independent retailers, to just ten key locations.

Amongst the regional centres are one each in Germany, France, and the United States, but most will be located in Asia – the brand’s biggest market – in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore. All of the ten will be run by Patek Philippe itself, or more specifically, its regional subsidiaries.

The Singapore service centre, for instance, is run by Geneva Master Time (GMT), Patek Philippe’s subsidiary for Southeast Asia. GMT also has a smaller service centre in Bangkok, a necessity given that Thailand is amongst the brand’s ten largest markets worldwide.

The condensed watchmaking kit given to all Patek Philippe points-of-sale that allows staff to perform simple tasks like changing straps and sizing bracelets. Notably it includes a custom-made tool to neatly slice the rubber strap for the Aquanaut.

The scale and resources of Patek Philippe also means that the brand has its own training regimen for its watchmakers and service centre personnel. Four Patek Philippe Institutes, located in Geneva, New York, Shanghai, and Singapore, dispense knowledge across the spectrum of watchmaking. They conduct training for specialties ranging from case polishing to minute repeater repair.

But arguably the most fundamental work of the four institutes is training watchmakers from scratch. Starting as apprentices – as Rexhep Rexhepi of Akrivia did as a teenager – would-be watchmakers undergo a two-year programme to qualify them as a watchmaker. The graduating class of 2022 from the Patek Philippe Institute in Singapore comprised five watchmakers, two from Singapore and three from Thailand, who will then go on to the service centres in each country.

A walk around

To illustrate the depth and breath of Patek Philippe’s service centre in Singapore, a handful of journalists were recently taken on a tour of the facility. The tour guide was Gerald Then, an industry veteran who’s the brand’s Regional Customer Service Manager.

Since 2015, the service centre has been located on the 16th floor of Wheelock Place, a mall along Singapore’s main shopping strip. The Singapore service centre can be summed by in a few numbers:

• 10,000 is the number of spare parts, straps, and other items in the service centre’s inventory
• 4,200 watches taken in annually, 60% of which undergo a full service
• 400 square metres, or over 4,000 square feet
• 55 operations to polish a Nautilus case and bracelet, the most laborious across the brand’s watches
• 21 technical personnel, mostly watchmakers but also a pair of polishing specialists, along with eight support staff
• 10-15% growth in volume of watches serviced a year
• 7 levels of training from time-only with calendar to perpetual calendar with retrograde date
• 7 hours is required to service a basic watch with time and date, starting with disassembly and ending with casing
• 4 hours is what it takes to polish a platinum case, compared to 60-90 minutes for a similar case in gold

To ensure globally consistent service, the Singapore outpost operates on a set of procedures and processes that are similar across all of Patek Philippe’s service centre according to Mr Then.

For instance, each service centre can only service watches up to a certain level of complexity. In Singapore that is “Level Advanced Module C”, which means a manual-wind chronograph movement. Anything more complicated, which includes the chronograph with perpetual calendar, has to be returned to Geneva.

The automatic chronograph cal. 28-520 that’s amongst the calibres serviced in Singapore

All watches that can be serviced at a regional service centre should be serviced locally, with a few exceptions.

They include a client expressly requesting servicing in Geneva with good reason, or vintage watches made dating from before the 1970s. Watches that also require replacement parts that have to be fabricated from scratch are also returned to Geneva.

Every watch serviced in Geneva, however, is still tested over several days after it returns to Singapore, just in case something goes amiss during the trip back.

Minute repeaters are serviced in Geneva…

As are vintage watches like this ref. 2499, regardless of complexity

But regardless of whether servicing is done at a regional service centre or back in Geneva, it is performed in a same way thanks to rigorous training and thorough guidelines. Functional upgrades to a movement, for example, are applied to every watch. Such upgrades would include wheels with new teeth profiles for instance.

In fact, mechanical or technical upgrades are mandatory according to Mr Then, who adds that this ensures that watches that have been serviced will function as best as possible. On the other hand, cosmetic upgrades or fixes are optional.

But despite the guidelines all of the watchmakers have to follow, their job is not merely exchanging parts. Replacing parts in complicated calibres usually entails substantial manual adjustment and finishing for the new component to fit seamlessly.

One of the most labour intensive jobs in the service centre is polishing, which is done by two ladies who have almost 50 years of polishing expertise between them. Both graduated from the 18-month polishing course conducted by Patek Philippe.

Armed with a variety of abrasive pastes, polishing wheels, masking tape, and a blasting cabinet, the pair polish watches of all metals. But gem-set timepieces or watches that require laser welding to fill in dents are not within their repertoire, instead these have to be worked on in Geneva.

According to the senior polishing specialist, the most complex case to refinish is the Nautilus, while the most challenging metal is platinum. She explains that her job is essentially to leave a watch looking as new as possible without changing too much the geometry or edges of the case or bracelet.

Fifty-five steps to achieve this famous form

Polishing is usually the final stop in the service centre before quality control – every watch has to run within -3/+2 seconds a day to pass.

Broadly speaking, quality control is a seven-step process, but it varies on the complexity of the watch. A perpetual calendar, for instance, is tested to ensure that all calendar indications change within the specified window, with all calendar hands aligned within fixed tolerances.

Once a watch has passed quality control, it is sealed in the (in)famous Patek Philippe plastic wrap and then boxed.

This packaging, however, is fleeting, like tears in the rain. The sealed bag is cut open before the watch is handed back to the owner.

Parting thoughts

The integration and consolidation of Patek Philippe’s after-sales service is an endeavour that will surely translate into an offering that is consistently high quality regardless of geography.

Granted, some enthusiasts and collectors might gripe at the standardised processes that leave less room for individual requests. For instance, the only option to fix a scratched bezel might be polishing rather than replacement.

But brand’s considerable investment in after-sales service is a testament to the brand’s commitment to doing more than just getting watches out the door. “Restoring our watches is just as important as the competence needed to craft new watches,” says Patek Philippe president Thierry Stern – a belief that takes tangible form in the constellation of service centres around the world.

For me, watches are and always have been about people – those that make them, those that design them, and those that buy them. And while many of you reading this will do your utmost (likely on a daily basis) to keep your interest in watches in check with your bank balance, every so often you meet a collector, an enthusiast, who takes things to a whole other level. Somebody who has gone all in, a collector who takes it to a level that even insiders like Thierry Stern of Patek Philippe rank them amongst the greatest collectors of all time.

Patrick Getreide is that individual. Having spent the past four decades quietly building one of the world’s greatest privately-owned collections of wrist and pocket watches, he has now put all of his timepieces on show for the world to enjoy and admire.

The show

I feel hugely privileged and excited having visited the exhibition on its opening day in London. Privileged because there were only a few press invited; excited because I believe it will open up our passion to more and more, aligning watchmaking with art, where it belongs.

The exhibition comprises 168 best-of-the-best vintage and contemporary museum-quality watches, among which are unrepeatable special orders, ultra-rare, limited editions, the most valuable examples of their type, and the largest number of Patek Philippe pieces once owned by the celebrated American collector Henry Graves Jr. now in private hands. It is also the first curated exhibition of a private collection of watches in any art museum anywhere in the world.

The opening event on the evening of May 18 that was attended by watch industry luminaries like Thierry Stern, Aurel Bacs and Livia Russo, Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver, James Marks, and George Bamford

The OAK Collection – short for “One of a Kind” – is built on three principles: quality, rarity, and provenance. And focuses on three major segments: Patek Phillipe, Rolex and Independents. And Mr Getreide is set apart by the fact that he collects new and vintage watches.

The setting for the OAK Collection is incredible. Firstly, the Design Museum is just a spectacular venue to set the scene. Clearly no expense has been spared in the display itself that takes place in a series of bespoke, interconnected rooms comprising 11 sections, each of which could be described as a chapter of time that encapsulates the collector’s appreciation of specific genres of watches, from simple, three-hand timepieces to high complications. And Mr Getreide discerning eye is reflected in every watch, which is in truly perfect condition, with the majority of examples being new or virtually unworn.

The OAK Collection exhibition will be unveiled to the public in London before embarking on a global tour incorporating four international stops at spectacular exhibition venues in the Middle East, the Far East and North America.

The man

One of the key parts of the story, and one many of you will be wondering is: who is Patrick Getreide? And how did he afford this incredible pursuit? The truth is – this is unclear. What we do know for sure is that he is a French entrepreneur living in Luxembourg who made his fortune by buying and selling companies in facilities management, commodities and real estate.

The interesting bit is Mr Getreide’s collection actually runs to over 600 watches – so the exhibition is actually the slimmed down selection! When asked about his youth, he says, “As a young boy at boarding school in Switzerland, I lived among the children of some of the world’s wealthiest people – but all I had was a small, weekly pocket money allowance. I didn’t feel envy, but I did want to be like these people and their parents. It gave me what I call ‘the Count of Monte Cristo syndrome’, a determination to achieve a level of success that would give me freedom to do the things I loved.”

What struck me about Mr Getreide was the sheer level of taste embodied in his collection. We are talking the most collectable and best preserved specimens from Patek Philippe, Rolex, and important independent watchmakers, all selected with a great deal of flair and class.

For every collector there is a watch that started it all. For Mr Getreide it was a Cartier Tank LC that captured his imagination, bought with the winnings from a horse-racing wager. In the early stages of getting into the hobby, like many of us, he would seek-out rarities everywhere he went. “As I travelled the world on business, I would always look for watches,” says Mr Getreide, “But it was at a flea market in France 35 years ago that I think I acquired my greatest bargain… a steel Patek Philippe Reference 130 Sector, and when I saw it, I began to shake”.

The 1980s Cartier Tank LC that started the OAK Collection

Although Mr Getreide long wanted to show his watches to other enthusiasts, it was his son, Roland, who first suggested staging a travelling exhibition, after having spent a lifetime observing his father’s undying passion for horology. “I have not been involved in acquiring watches for the collection, but I have been on the margins of it for as long as I can remember,” explains Roland Getreide.

Patek Phillipe

The OAK Collection is heavy on Patek Philippe. The brand’s timepieces account for six of the exhibition’s 11 sections, covering the Calatrava, Nautilus, World Time, and perpetual calendar or complicated models, in addition to the Graves watches and Rare Handcraft pieces.

A selection of vintage Patek Philippe watches with cloisonné enamel dials and their modern-day counterparts from the Rare Handcrafts collection

The Calatrava

Among the 20 Calatravas on display, 12 are vintage, four modern, and three are one-offs.

Highlights include the unique ref. 530 in steel with a glossy black dial and Breguet numerals; the only known ref. 570 in yellow gold with a two-tone yellow-gold dial and Breguet numerals; and a ref. 570 in pink gold with a two-tone rose dial bearing Breguet numerals. Add to that the unique ref. 1504 in steel with black dial and pink gold indexes, and you have a lineup Mr Getreide labels “The ‘Fantastic Four” – all truly “One-of-A-Kind” and all featuring Breguet numerals.

The “Fantastic Four”. Image – OAK Collection

And in a measure of Mr Getreide’s stature as a collector, Patek Philippe created unique versions of its contemporary Calatrava ref. 5196 that are modelled on the vintage examples – these are on show as well naturally.

One of the unique ref. 5196s in the exhibition, this one with a dark blue dial instead of the silver dial found on the standard model

The chronograph

There are 29 stellar chronographs on show, all but six of which are rarest-of-the-rare vintage watches. Among these is a unique ref. 130 featuring a yellow gold case, a single-pusher chronograph, and a remarkable, mirrored two-tone mirror in silver marked with a tachymeter scale.

Also exceptional are the ref. 530 chronograph in pink gold from 1956 that’s signed by its original retailer, Gobbi Milano, and the ref. 1436 in yellow gold that combines a split-seconds with a pulsometer scale.

Another example of the Patek Philippe ref. 530, this one with Breguet numerals

A selection of modern-day chronographs, including unique versions of the ref. 5070

Graves and Fullerton

The great Henry Graves Jr.’s fascination with Patek Philippe watches resulted in a collection that was inherited by his grandson, Reginald “Pete” H. Fullerton, who amassed an exceptional collection of his own. Henry Graves Jr. commissioned no fewer than 39 watches from Patek and only around 30 are believed to have survived, five of which form part of the OAK Collection.

Among the former is a stunning, observatory-quality tourbillon pocket watch with a platinum case that was created by Patek Philippe for participation in the Geneva Astronomical Observatory timing contest of 1933 – which it won outright, making it one of the world’s most accurate mechanical watches at the time.

Others include a gold minute repeater pocket watch that was especially made for him that was gifted to his grandson on the occasion of the latter’s marriage. Another is a hunting-cased minute repeater with an enamel dial.

The two Fullerton watches, meanwhile, comprise the ref. 3960, an officer-cased wristwatch, and the ref. 3969, a tonneau-shaped jump hours, both of which were produced as limited editions to mark Patek Philippe’s 150th anniversary in 1989.

In total, the OAK Collection boasts five watches that once belonged to Graves and two owned by Fullerton, which are perhaps the crown jewels of the collection. The only larger selection of Graves watches belonging to a single entity is in the Patek Philippe Museum, which holds 13. Three of the Graves watches in the OAK Collection are engraved with the Graves family crest and its motto “Esse Quam Videre” – “to be, rather than to seem”.

The Nautilus

When it comes to Nautilus, the exhibition includes no fewer than 16 examples. They include three early ref. 3700 models in different guises, including the only known Nautilus to have been fitted with a “special request” quartz movement and a selection of more recent models featuring chronograph and calendar complications.

The famous anniversary Nautilus with an olive-green dial

The ref. 5726/1A-012 with a unique blue-black dial

The complications

Patek Philippe’s perpetual calendar and complicated watches are among the firm’s rarest and most difficult to obtain. Among the six vintage perpetual calendar chronographs on display including the ref. 1518 “pink on pink” with pink gold case and pink dial as well as a pink gold bracelet. Another is the ref. 1518 that was one of just six made with large, Arabic numerals. And then there’s also the unique, first series ref. 2499 with a champagne dial. All just ooze class.

The “pink on pink” ref. 1518

Rare Handcrafts

The Rare Handcrafts section encompasses nine watches, vintage and modern. One is a pocket watch from 2017 that has an enamelled guilloche dial carrying individually applied hour markers in the form of tiny flowers made from yellow gold. Also exceptional is a hunting-case Calatrava wristwatch made to mark Patek Philippe’s 175th anniversary that features a marquetry dial depicting a traditional sailing barque on Lac Leman, a longtime favourite theme of the brand.

The ref. 2482 with a “jungle” cloisonné dial

A one-of-a-kind vintage Patek Philippe ref. 2481 with a “compass” cloisonné dial

The World Time

Developed by Geneva horologist Louis Cottier in the 1930s, the disc-based world time wristwatches of Patek Philippe have long appealed to the most important of collectors, with several examples ranking amongst the most expensive Patek Philippe watches ever sold at auction. But world time watches become additionally covetable when they possess rare dial variants, an example being one of the two vintage ref. 2523 Heures Universelles, or “HU” for short”, featured in the exhibition.

The ref. 2523 HU two-crown World Time is one of just four known examples to feature a dial centre enamelled in vivid blue – Mr Getreide’s favourite colour. Another prime example is the pristine, 1963 ref. 2523 HU.

While the modern World Time pieces on show include no fewer than four with dials decorated with cloisonné enamel maps.

The ref. 2523 with a blue enamel dial. Image – OAK Collection

Rolex

There are 13 sports chronographs by Rolex on show, eight of which are vintage and five modern. Among the former, highlights include an exceptionally rare 1961 Daytona issued to the Peruvian airforce, better known as Fuerza Aerea del Peru (FAP), and a 1966 Daytona that not only features a sought-after “Paul Newman” dial but was originally owned by NASA astronaut Walter Cunningham who piloted the Apollo 7 lunar module.

The modern examples on show range from a yellow gold Daytona powered by the Rolex-modified version of the famous Zenith El Primero automatic movement, to the platinum Daytona launched in 2013 and powered by the in-house cal. 4130.

A 1945 Rolex ref. 3525 with an interesting history

The “Chuck Yeager” GMT-Master was part of a limited run of customised watches made by Japanese retailer Real McCoy’s

The indies

In this section we see rare references from Francois-Paul Journe and Kari Voutilainen, both of whom have supplied the collector with some exceptional, and occasionally custom-made, pieces.

One of my personal favourites was the F.P. Journe Ruthenium set that comprises a Chronometre a Resonance, Octa Calendrier, Tourbillon Souverain, Octa Chronograph and Octa Jour et Nuit. The five watches date from 2002, a time when the maker’s excellence was only just becoming recognised. Made in a limited edition of 99 pieces each, all have movements made from ruthenium-plated brass along with ruthenium-coated dials, hence the name. Even more remarkably, each watch is in “new old stock” condition.

There are five Voutilainen watches on display, all in equally pristine condition. One is the unique Voutilainen created for the charity auction Only Watch 2015.

The F.P. Journe Tourbillon Souverain Ruthenium. Image – OAK Collection

Fun facts

The oldest watch on show is a slim, hunter case, minute repeating dress watch in yellow gold that was made in 1927 and then sold to Henry Graves Jr. in 1927. With its provenance and mint condition, the watch is probably one of the best simple minute repeating Patek Philippe watches known.

The newest watch is a Nautilus ref. 5711/1A-014 – the celebrated Nautilus with a green dial that was launched in 2021.

The 1927 Graves minute repeater. Image – OAK Collection

The largest watch is the observatory tourbillon pocket watch in platinum once owned by Henry Graves Jr. that measures 48 mm in diameter, while the largest wrist watches are those in the Nautilus section. And the smallest watch in the exhibition is a Calatrava ref. 96 that has a diameter of just 30.5 mm, which is also in platinum like the tourbillon pocket watch.

The most complicated watch is the contemporary ref. 5208, which features a minute repeater, perpetual calendar and chronograph. And the only watch with a quartz movement is the vintage Nautilus ref. 3700 that’s the only quartz example of the reference in existence, having been made upon special request by a doctor.

The smallest. Image – OAK Collection

And the biggest. Image – OAK Collection

Close

Just promise me that if you do one thing, go see this exhibition when it comes to your city. Beg, borrow, or steal the time from your wife or husband and make it happen. This is a must see for any watch lover.

The OAK Collection is on show daily from May 19-25, 2022, at the Design Museum in London. Entry is free.

Design Museum
224-238 Kensington High Street
London W8 6AG
United Kingdom 

After London the OAK Collection will go on show in other cities around the world in 2022 and 2023 – details on those locations soon.

For more visit Oakcollection.watch.

]]> https://watchesbysjx.com/2022/05/time-museum-tehran-hossein-khodadad-house.html Sun, 08 May 2022 23:00:31 +0000 https://watchesbysjx.com/?p=131878 Iran certainly isn’t the first country that comes to mind when pondering the art and science of measuring time. Besides the obvious fact that the country is historically not a watchmaking nation, the modern-day geopolitics have isolated Iran. But this was not always the case. Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s economy was open and boasted considerable […]]]>

Iran certainly isn’t the first country that comes to mind when pondering the art and science of measuring time. Besides the obvious fact that the country is historically not a watchmaking nation, the modern-day geopolitics have isolated Iran.

But this was not always the case. Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s economy was open and boasted considerable dynamism. The country still retained its historical role as an international hub that connected East and West, an important position that allowed Iran to cultivate relations with most of the world’s industrialised countries. 

An enduring legacy of Iran’s historically significant status in Near East and its extensive connections with leading nations is preserved, seemingly frozen in time, within one of Tehran’s elaborate, pre-Revolutionary mansions. Located in the Zafaranieh district – one of the city’s oldest districts that got its name from the wealth saffron merchants who once populated the area – the mansion is home to the Time Museum of Tehran.

Zafaranieh is an upscale area that’s home to many embassies, including those of the Brazil, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and Qatar, but the original building where the museum stands predates most of them. It was originally a plain, single-story home dating to the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925), which ruled Iran before the Pahlavis, the last imperial family of Iran who were overthrown during the revolution of 1979.

But it was only when Hossein Khodadad, a prolific entrepreneur who established one of country’s main industrial towns, acquired the building in the early 1960s that the mansion took on its current form. Khodadad envisioned a glorious expression of historical Iranian architecture as his home, which required extensive expansion and renovation of the original structure.

Khodadad’s rebuilding of the house was a no-expense-spared exercise that took more than a decade. He acquired a small building in a somewhat raw and dilapidated state, but oversaw the transformation of the one-story structure into a magnificent two-story building of some 700 square meters, or just over 7,500 square feet, sitting at the centre of a serene 5,000 square-meter garden. 

According to the government foundation organisation that currently owns the building, some of Iran’s most famed craftsmen and artists of the 1960s toiled nonstop for a dozen years to realise Khodadad’s vision. The project was supervised by one of the most famous civil engineers of the period, while the design of the mansion was the work of two of the most prominent architects of the day, Mohammad Kashi and Ramezan Abbasian.

The mansion was entirely decorated in ornamental motifs of repeating patterns and geometric shapes that are typical of the traditional architecture of the region. In fact, Khodadad wanted the house to be a canvas for stucco, otherwise known as decorative plaster, long  a key element of Persian architecture.

Throughout Persian history, stucco has always been crucial part of the artistic expression in architecture. Its use in the buildings of the region dates back some three millennia.

Noted stucco mason Abdulkarim Navid Tehrani was recruited to oversee the building’s decoration, inside and out. Tehrani in turn recruited 40 more prominent plasterers to style and execute the decoration across different sections of the building. In other words, during the renovation, Khodadad became the workshop that gathered the country’s best specialists in stucco, a key element of Persian architecture for centuries.

While the entire building is decorated with stucco, one room in particularly has more of it, being entirely decorated in stucco from top to bottom. The room was named the Isfahani Room after the genre of Persian architecture that inspired the home. The style originated in the city of Isfahan, capital of the Persian Empire for almost a thousand years started from the ninth century.

The Isfahani Room

A stained glass window in the Isfahani Room

The chandelier in the Isfahani Room with its ornate stucco ceiling

Another chandelier in the Isfahani Room

Beyond the Isfahani Room, the mansion is ornamented with a variety of fittings and decorations throughout its rooms, which range from chandeliers to stained glass, and of course more stucco.

Impressive stucco

Some rooms are intricately painted and gilded from floor to ceiling

All of the chandeliers are ornate and individually unique, each made from a variety of materials ranging from glass to porcelain

Finally, the mansion was completed in 1978 and Khodadad moved in. His residency, however, would be short-lived. 

Just a few months before the fateful weeks of February 1979, Khodadad left for the United States on a trip that was supposed to have just a few days but became permanent exile. With the country in turmoil by late 1978, events moved swiftly and the Shah was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution. 

In the wake of the revolution, “revolutionary courts” were established to try prominent members of the deposed regime. They included political and military figures, as well as businessmen, most of whom were sentenced to death – including airforce general Nader Jahanbani – save for a lucky few who were condemned to long prison terms.

Khodadad was out of reach for the revolutionary courts, but the mansion was there for the taking. And so his prized home, like many other properties that belonged to figures from the old regime, was confiscated.

Another recurring decoration throughout the building is stained glass, which can be found in most windows of the building

The star motif of the stained glass is echoed by the metal grilles behind the ground-level windows

Today the home and museum is owned by the Mostazafan Foundation – simply known as “The Foundation” in Iran – one of the most important government organisations in the Islamic Republic. The Mostazafan Foundation controls a vast swathe of real estate as well as numerous businesses, with many of its assets having once been owned by individuals associated with the Shah’s government.

Amongst the Mostazafan Foundation’s many departments is the Cultural Institute of Museums, which oversees the numerous institutions it controls. They include museums dedicated to traditional textiles, historical weaponry and arms, jewellery, and pottery, but the best known internationally is the National Car Museum that’s home to the car collection once owned by the Shah.

In 2000, the Cultural Institute of Museums converted Khodadad’s house into a repository for Mostazafan Foundation’s collection of timepieces, many of which, like the house itself, are confiscated property. On the other hand, some of timepieces on show were donated to the museum by private individuals over the years.

Although the timepieces are well cared for, the museum has yet to cultivate the specialist knowledge required to carefully catalogue the exhibits. Consequently, only cursory information is provided for each exhibit, the oldest of which are more than 200 years old.

One of the oldest exhibits: an 18th century clock made by Hitzinger of Vienna

A 19th-century French clock with a calendar and moon phase

A 19th century, half-hour striking clock with a depiction of cupid

A Louis XVI wall clock

A 19th-century French clock decorated in gilt and porcelain panels

A 19th century French clock with Islamic-inspired decoration

A 19th century French clock in a Chinese-inspired design and decorated in cloisonné enamel

Several of the timepieces on reflect Iran’s imperial past, with many bearing portraits of past Shahs.

A pocket watch with an enamel portrait of Ahmad Shah, the last ruler of the Qajar Dynasty

A minute repeating pocket watch with Ahmad Shah’s royal cipher on the lid

A watch that once belonged to Mizra Hosein Khan with his miniature portrait on the lid; he was prime minister during Naser al-Din Shah Qajar reign and also the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire

A Swiss pocket watch set with pearls and bearing Turkish numerals on the dial, which is typical of watches made for the Ottoman Empire

A sundial clock made for Naser Al-Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty

The timepieces on show also encompasses wristwatches up to the 1970s before the revolution.

An Audemars Piguet skeletonised wristwatch

Also an Audemars Piguet skeletonised wristwatch, but here with an integrated bracelet of the style popular in the 1970s

A 1960s Cartier Tank Louis Cartier

A Universal Geneve wristwatch bearing feathered crown emblem of the Pahlavi dynasty 

A Universal Geneve wristwatch bearing the national emblem of Saudi Arabia

The museum also displays a selection of wristwatches, including this 1970s Piaget coin watch

And being a museum dedicated to timepieces and timekeeping, the former mansion also includes a variety of intriguing clocks and some artwork relating to time.

The museum also has a small selection of watchmaking paraphernalia

A collage made up of watch movement components and dials by Houshang Foroutan, an Iranian artist and designer who specialises in such collages

A candle clock in the form of a dragon boat

A Smiths Astral ship’s clock

An oversized hourglass sculpture in the garden

Being a government-owned institution, the museum charges just 5,000 tomans (or US$0.20) for local visitors, while tourists pay US$1. It is a popular tourist attraction in Tehran – ranked “#38 of 189 things to do in Tehran” on Tripadvisor – and includes a cafe in the garden.

But in the museum’s official literature there is little mention of Hossein Khodadad, whose vision of elaborate Persian architecture still stands in the centre of Tehran.

After notching up several world records for the thinnest watch in various categories, Bulgari had yet to claim the title of the thinnest mechanical watch. Piaget took the title in 2018 with the announcement of the AUC, which became commercially available in 2020.

But the Roman jeweller has finally bested its rivals with the Octo Finissimo Ultra, which is an astonishing 1.8 mm tall from crystal to case back, making it the thinnest watch on the market today (and also the thinnest in decades). It’s 0.2 mm slimmer than the Piaget AUC. The Ultra is certainly less, but is it more accomplished?

Initial thoughts

Trumping the previous title holder by a sizeable margin of 10%, the Octo Finissimo Ultra is an impressive achievement, even though the race to the be the flattest has been ongoing for a long time.

For starters, the Ultra does well in terms of design. While the design is based on the long standing Octo Finissimo, it doesn’t take away from its appeal. The Ultra is the sportiest watch among the thinnest of ultra-thin watches, with striking contemporary lines.

And it is very much a watch of today, literally. The large barrel ratchet wheel is engraved with a QR code providing access to an NFT artwork that accompanies each watch. It is tacky both as an idea and also up close, but at a distance the pattern of the code could pass for a decorative motif that fills up what would otherwise be a wide open space.

Keeping current

But the burning question is how did Bulgari’s latest beat the Piaget AUC?

The answer lies in two different approaches to movement construction. The AUC largely adheres to the basic conventions for a watch: it has the hour and minute hands on a single axis, as well as a single crown for winding and time setting.

In contrast, the Ultra relies on a regulator-style display that separates hours and minutes, while also splitting the crown functions into twin lateral, “backwind” crowns. Those features mean the movement is inherently thinner (more on this later) – and can be regarded as either compromises or innovation.

The differences make the comparison between the two less straightforward, but it doesn’t take away the fact that the Ultra is impressively diminutive at 1.8 mm.

A race to the flattest

Like the Piaget AUC, the Ultra combines the base plate and case back into one, while also having the bridge double up as the dials. But the Ultra spares no effort in spreading out the components of the movement as much as possible – it contains only a handful of vertically stacked components.

Those efforts are most obvious with the regulator display, which avoids the vertical height needed for conventionally arranged hands that sit one on top of another, as well as doing away with the stacking of the underlying gears needed to drive the hands. Interestingly, the gear train has an extra wheel at its start, which means the seconds disc is drive by the fifth wheel, instead of the conventional fourth.

The auxiliary wheel at the start is directly connected to the barrel, so it helps transmit energy from the mainspring. Because the auxiliary wheel is connected to the minute wheel, it also functions as an intermediate wheel in the motion works, serving to convert the rotational speed of a minute wheel to that of an hour wheel – a ratio of 12:1. In other words, the motion works are spread out and flattened, instead of being stacked up right below the hour and minute hands as is convention.

Because the movement is inverted – or back to front – the fourth wheel turns counterclockwise when viewed from the front, a problem that is solved with the addition of a wheel to the gear train. But oddly enough the fourth wheel still rotates counterclockwise, because the rotational direction of the barrel has been reversed due to the position of the winding click. As such, the fourth wheel has printed numerals to indicate the seconds, which reads more naturally as it is running “backwards” and also negates the need of a seconds hand.

The spreading out is also seen on the minute display, where the minute hand does not sit above the minute wheel, which would lead to extra height because of the pinion, jewel and bridge that is visible just above the minute counter. Instead, the minute hand relies on a 1:1 wheel that transfers the motion of the minute wheel horizontally to the edge of the register. Beneath the register sits the wheel that drives the minute hand, and below that the base plate (which is also the case back).

The second secret to the Ultra is the transformation of the crown. A conventional crown sits perpendicular to the case, but here it takes the form of not one but two crowns positioned parallel to the case – and flush with the case back.

The twin crowns on the back

The “backwind” crowns immediately eliminate the need for components positioned at right angles to one another, such as the castle wheel. And even more space is saved since each crown serves a different purpose, a feat that required some clever ideas to pull off.

The winding crown, for example, is smartly simple. It directly winds the barrel via a grand sonnerie-style click, which acts as a one way clutch. The compact design remains flat without the 90-degree castle wheel, reducing the vertical volume it occupies hence preserving thinness.

Meanwhile, a second crown is used to set the time. It uses a differential system, a more sophisticated solution than the usual friction clutch. But to prevent the barrel from unwinding via the time-setting crown, another grand sonnerie-style click is called into service, which unfortunately means that the time can only be set forwards and not backwards.

Finishing

The BVL 180 is surprisingly elegant in its construction and finishing despite the limited surfaces for decoration.

Among the most handsome components is the balance assembly, which is made up of a circular balance bridge along with a free-sprung balance. Notably, the balance assembly is modular, making servicing easier since the assembly can be replaced during an overhaul. This is a useful feature it will no doubt be challenging and time-consuming to service a delicate movement such as this.

While the movement barely has any anglage, the bridges that are machined with wide, steep bevels along their edges that even include a few inward angles, adding another dimension of visual interest.

Key facts and price

Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra

Diameter: 40 mm
Height: 1.8 mm
Material: Titanium and tungsten carbide
Crystal: Sapphire
Water resistance: 10 m

Movement: BVL 180
Functions: Hours, minutes, and seconds
Frequency: 28,800 beats per hour (4 Hz)
Winding: Manual wind
Power reserve: 50 hours

Strap: Titanium bracelet with folding clasp

Limited edition: 10 pieces
Availability: From Bulgari boutiques
Price: €400,000 including VAT

For more, visit bulgari.com.

Correction March 23, 2022: The Ultra is not the thinnest mechanical watch ever, that title goes to the Jean Lassale 1200 that was 1.2 mm high.