Best Watches in the Swiss Watch Shows

Part 2

Gruebel Forsey

Another amazing new entry. This time, by two veterans in the industry – Robert Gruebel and Stephen Forsey, both from the famed house of Renaud et Papi. They began their work together on this project 4 years ago. The result is the remarkable twin axis tourbillon.

A large carriage is powered by the 2^nd wheel and revolves in 4 minutes. Inside the large carriage, with a diameter of about 15mm is a smaller, second carriage. This carriage is inclined at a 30 degree angle to the first, and revolved in 60 seconds. It carries the entire ecapement, free sprung balance system with flat hairspring and Phillips terminal curve. Both carriages comprise some 128 components, and together only weigh 1.17g.

The main characteristic of the tourbillon is twin axis, and that they are angled at 30 degrees to each other. This angle was chosen to allow an acceptable depth to the watch, and also, because of differential speeds of the carriages, will cause the escapement to describe a conical shape over time. This ensures that the carriage is never in one position relative to the ground plane reference for more than one moment, and provides the balance the freedom from being influenced by gravity.

The Double Tourbillon is driven by twin barrels, and has a power reserve or 72 hours.

Jaeger Le Coultre Gyrotourbillon 1

Interestingly, JLC also released a twin axis tourbillon. The Gyrotourbillon had an impressive looking cage, which emphasized the double axis even more.

Pictures do not do the JLC justice, but I attach one image for reference. At their booth in SIHH04, they had an entire floor of watchmakers, with microscopes, and on display was the gyrotourbillon in its glory, spinning under microscope, a truly breathtaking view.

The tourbillon looks like a sphere, and extremely enchanting to gaze.

JLC also found space to incorporate a perpetual calendar with double retrograde date, retrograde leap year at the back of the movement, and a running equation of time. I particularly liked the leap year indication being placed at the back, as it is a function only used in setting the watch, and once set, is typically forgotten.

Empowered with a movement which runs 8 days (originally, it was designed for 150 hours – picture shows pre-release prototype), the caliber 177 is housed in an impressive platinum case, and subjected to the JLC Master Control 1000 hour test.

The running equation of time itself demands more exploration. A second minute hand, marked with a gold star shows the actual solar time. A traditional equation of time mechanism shows the amount to add to or subtract from present time to show accurate solar time. Blancpain also premiered this running equation of time in BaselWorld this year.

Patek Philippe 5135 Gondolo Annual Calendar

For BaselWorld 2004, Patek Philippe again showcased a number of smaller scale refinements. The new Patek Philippe 5135 features the patented Annual Calendar function, but displays the date, day and moon in apertures arranged on an arc between 10 and 2. I find this arrangement particularly pleasing, and does not clutter the dial. The new automatic movement – caliber 324 is a self winding movement beating at faster 28,800 bph. The movement also features the next generation balance wheel. The legacy two spoke construction with 8 movable poising weights has been replaced with a four spoke wheel with 4 weights. The new design is said to improve torsional rigidity in the plane of rotation and the smaller number of poising weights facilities simplicity in the adjustment. Also the weights are recessed into the arms of the balance wheel, providing some improvements in aerodynamics of the wheel.

The watch is housed in a tonneau case, which had drawn either extreme criticism, or praise. Personally I like the case, and feel that the play between the case shape, and the Breguet-style numerals at 3 and 9 and appliqué gold arrow hour markers, the dauphine hands and small gold hand to indicate the hours on a 24 hour dial are all very pleasing.

IWC

IWC had an amazing year this SIHH. Not only did they introduce very interesting new concepts to dive watches, but also a new tourbillon based on the Portugese case, and also the watch that caught my eye – the new Portugeiser Minute Repeater.

I have a love hate relationship with skeleton watches…while I admire the workmanship of creating openings in the dial and the bridges; I find these watches impossible to read. But here is a watch with a perfect excuse…if you cannot read the time, you can always summon its gong to read it for you.

This exquisitely skeletoned watch, in the always beautiful Portugese case is a masterpiece in visual design. The dial is almost non-existent…a vestigial comprising only of a ring showing the minute markers. The beautiful pink gold swallow hands allow some contrast to the rhodium plated movement…and permits some ability for one to read the time. And the gorgeous repeater works, beautiful bridges, even more beautiful filigree work on the bridges – the act of removing material for the sake of beauty and to expose elements deeper in the movement, but without sacrificing any rigidity. Beautiful. The repeater sound, though not the best I have heard, is quite clear, with good tone, and though still a little soft, is not quite as muffled as the regular IWC Portugeiser Repeater.

Fuch Floorstanding Clock with removable tourbillon

I was poking around the clock side of the exhibition in BaselWorld, in between appointments, and amongst the usual Erwin Sattlers, I spied a very handsome floorstanding clock with an unusual mechanism mounted at 12. In stepped a young man, no more than 25 years in my estimation, and asked for permission to show me the clock. He proceeded to use a key, and stopped the pendulum. And in a twist removed the contraption at 12 and handed it to me. On my palm, the contraption continued to beat, like the heart. The young man explained that he had made a tourbillon escapement for the clock, which is removable, and it was indeed the entire tourbillon carriage, enclosed in Perspex which rests on my palm. The tourbillon has sufficient internal power to continue to beat outside of the clock for 50 seconds. A truly magnificent piece.

The young man was M. Fuchs, and had served his apprenticeship in IWC in 1999/2000. Remarkable!

Note: Pictures pending.

Chopard 4R Regulator

Ever since they introduced the LUC series watches in 1996, Chopard has been a house to watch. They have reintroduced new watches with a regularity which puts many other important manufactures in shame. They quickly followed the LUC 1.96 with the incredible 8 day 1.98, and then send another shock into the watchmaking world with the very beautiful tourbillon. This year, they innovated on the 1.98 movement and improved their visual design and showed the very eye catching Regulator shown left.

I particularly liked the YG version, with the attractive black and silver dial, bold markers for the minutes, hours, and even the power reserve. Very well balanced design.

This year, as usual, a small group of us were received personally by Karl Fredrich Scheuefle. He had on his wrist the new Wings Tourbillon. He also gave us a sneak preview on next year’s novelty – a new, ground up perpetual calendar, with a novel moonphase indicator – one disk, printed with the image of two full moons sits below another showing the sky from Geneva, and cut with a round aperture. The top disk rotates at 29.5 days, and shows the age of the moon by revealing the disk below. Very beautiful. Very novel.