The Vacheron Constantin Minute Repeater is a testament to the belief that you don’t have to stand out above the crowd to be popular. It’s the model of simplicity. Sometimes, we can get away with judging something by its cover, so to speak. But there’s no getting away here. Don’t judge this watch by the way it looks.

This timepiece from Vacheron Constantin doesn’t need an overly eye-popping exterior because inside it lays a thing of beauty, the minute repeater. A minute repeater relays the time - the hour, quarter hour, and minutes - via tones produced by gongs inside the watch. It is a very complicated process requiring great skill and precision to design.

Although this watch doesn’t look as high profile as it is, it doesn’t mean it’s not pleasing to look at. The materials used are top-notch, and there’s a certain appeal to its simplicity, something mesmerizing and promising. Even the tones that repeat the time is subtle, like it’s begging not to be noticed. Perhaps it was designed to be admired only by its lucky owner who knows its true value; but then again, perhaps not. And while we ponder, we realize that this mystery also adds to the appeal of the Vacheron Constantin Minute Repeater.

This elegant timepiece may be the most complicated wristwatch ever created. In honor of the year the House of Blancpain watch factory was established, it was called Blancpain 1735. It was 6 years in the making, beating daunting odds like apparent dead-ends and stifling doubts. Aside from its elegant look, it also features a complicated design which involved a great deal of impressive talent and creativity. These 2 features makes the 1735 an excellent creation, a work of art indeed.

Imagine how hard it is to integrate several watch making breakthroughs and technology into a single watch. Impossible? Maybe so, at least until the Blancpain 1735 was created. This watch features ultra slim movement, the moon phase calendar, the minute repeater, the Tourbillon, the perpetual calendar, and split seconds chronograph. Each of this components requires near-impossible precision and creativity, and having them all in a single wristwatch is literally outstanding.

Blancpain’s watchmakers say they’ll only be making 30 of these. Only 18 have been constructed to date, with the remaining 12 still under construction. Chances are, the remaining 12 are already preordered, but that’s not confirmed. It is to be expected though with a watch as such as this. A total of 735 individual components make up the Blancpain 1735, some one those were made from 18-karat gold. That’s 735 reasons to want one only if you can afford it.

There’s no telling what this watch can do to a woman lucky enough to wear it. Will it lend its sparkles to its owner? Definitely so, what with almost 66 carats of diamonds providing star-like shine and luster to its stylishly done design.

It’s so easy to overlook the excellent craftsmanship present in the Chopard Super Ice Cube. Everyone gets blinded by the diamonds. Who wouldn’t be? Looking closely though, you will notice how each diamond is expertly placed, and then the craftsmanship hits you full in the face. Judging the Super Ice Cube by its diamonds alone is understandable and expected, but quite demeaning for a watch designed with such creativity and precision.

The Chopard Super Ice Cube hints of royalty and grace. It is also a symbol of opulence and extravagance, of success and high standing. Obviously, this watch is only for the super rich. Some jewelry shines but this Chopard shines brighter than most. If the Milky Way is made up of watches, the Chopard Super Ice Cube is the sun, the biggest star of them all.

By Issac Stolzenbach

This article was published originally in issue 10.1 of hr: Watches & Luxury Lifestyle Magazine. Subscribe to hr: magazine and enjoy similar articles www.hrluxury.com.

While we discuss the latest models, innovations, conventions, etcetera of our watches; gaze in awe at the beautifully engineered timepieces on our wrists; and try to figure outways of gaining more time, sometimes we lose sight of what keeping track of time is all about: Defining our place in the universe.

Since the beginning of mankind’s aspiration to keep time with utmost precision, they have used the stars as a measuring device; The watchmakers needed an authoritative signal to serve as a regulator in building and setting their timepieces. At this point in the history of German watchmaking, artisans in Glashütte had to wait on a regulating signal sent from Berlin to set their timepieces.There were multiple problems with this system:

1) The hazy skies in Berlin provided only limited astrological capabilities;

2) the time signal was transmitted from Berlin to the watchmaking school in Glashütte by a human inputting Morse code, which even omitting the time it took for the signal to get there, the best operators could only get within onetwentieth of a second accuracy;

3) the signal then had to be redistributed from the school to the local manufactures. One can see the opportunities for error and German watchmakers – being obsessed with precision – would not stand for lapses in accuracy.

The regulating signal emanating from Berlin was sufficient to keep railroads and postal carriers on time, but not for teachers who wished to relay their knowledge of horology to their students, nor watchmakers who sought to construct timepieces that were as accurate as the stars guiding them. The chairman of Urania,Hugo Müller, sought to rectify these issues.

The WEMPE CHRONOMETERWERKE Glashütte i/SA “My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father were never satisfied with selling fine watches. They wanted to offer their own timepieces. By establishing the WEMPE STERNWARTE Glashütte i/SA collection, and the first German chronometer-testing site in Glasshütte, we have created a second venue that will preserve our horological expertise for posterity.” - Kim-Eva Wempe

Müller was a renowned regleur (chronometrist) and held the proud position of adjusting deck watches that were more accurate than the signal coming from Berlin.

Therefore, he sought a way to eliminate the Müglitz Valley’s dependence on the regulating signal from Berlin. Müller led the way and supplied a plot of land in Dittersdorfer Weg for the construction of an observatory, which began construction when the foundation stone was set on August 27, 1906.

When the observatory opened four–years later in 1910 it cemented Glashütte as the hub of Germany’s watchmaking industry and it contained the most cutting-edge technology available at the time. It was furnished with: a refracting telescope to precisely measure the Earth’s place in the Milky Way galaxy; one of the most accurate timepieces made at that time: a marine chronometer; and a donation from Glashütte’s leading industrialist, Ludwig Trapp, a precision pendulum clock. Finally, German watchmakers had an exact reference to precisely quantify and further improve the accuracy of their craft.

Several problems were solved with the completion of the observatory. In addition to affording horologist with a more accurate reference, Glashütte now had its own educational observatory that could be used by horology professors and students. Soon thereafter, a testing facility was established and watches could be certified for accuracy.This served as an essential element in streamlining the maritime chronometer construction because the watchmakers no longer had to get involved in the extensive process of securely packaging their chronometers for shipment to Hamburg’s naval observatory for testing.

The manifestation of the observatory dream gave birth to yet another vision nearly 40-years later,but to bring the idea to fruition would take nearly another six decades. In 1939,Otto Lange (grandson of the founder of Saxony’s watchmaking industry) and Herbert Wempe (owner of the Wempe Chronometerwerke in Hamburg) were fascinated by the bastion of precise timekeeping in Glashütte and founded the cooperative workgroup,Glashütte Observatory.

Their goal was to establish a reglage (precision timekeeping) institute.World War Two disrupted these plans and watchmakers were placed under the jurisdiction of Germany’s naval and aeronautics ministry.

The apex of German watchmaking was reached when the government demanded a reasonably priced and integrated chronometer in the shortest possible time. Wempe Chronometerwerke and its closest competitor, the A.Lange & Söhne watch manufactory, began working together. The exchange of knowledge and resources was unsurpassed and the result debuted in 1942 as the legendary Unified Chronometer.

After the production of the Unified Chronometer, there was nearly a 50-year freeze in Glashütte watchmaking. The Allies dissolved the Urania watchmakers’ association in the late 1940s and the observatory was designated communal property. The manufacture that once made some of the most horologically advanced timepieces in Saxony began producing run-of-the-mill watches and clocks for daily use. The observatory was opened in 1960 as an educational observatory.

The Wempe Chronometerwerke in Hamburg guarded the flame of horological innovation,which at this time was a mere flicker, but they were still able to keep pace with modernity: In 1962 they made the first electrically wound marine chronometer.

The art of watchmaking returned to Glashütte soon after German Reunification on Oct. 3, 1990. At this point, the observatory had fallen into grave disrepair, but stood proud overlooking Glashütte as a symbol of German watchmaking precision and horological tradition.

The company reestablished itself as WEMPE STERNWARTE Glashütte i/SA on Aug. 29, 2005 and commenced watchmaking operations. In february2005, WEMPE purchased the 620-square-meter plot of land the observatory rested on and invested 1.5 million Euros (approx. $2 million USD) in the renovation of the observatory.

Six months after the purchase, a topping-out ceremony was held on June 9, 2005 and the cupola (observatory dome) was rested atop the tower on July 15, 2005. The grand commemoration of the observatory’s reopening was celebrated along with the opening of a new manufacture headed by Gunter Teuscher and the opening of a chronometer-testing facility headed by engineering expert,Dr.Olaf Kühn.

In collaboration with the offices of weights and measurements in Thuringia and Saxony (LMET and SLME) a testing facility that meets the values of the German international standards (DIN: Deutsches Institut für Normung, or roughly translated: German Institute for Standardization), which is a member of the International Standardization Organization (ISO).

By establishing a new manufacture venue, installing a chronometer-testing facility, and reconditioning the observatory WEMPE has etched out Germany’s place in horology as a symbol of precision timekeeping. Herbert Wempe’s dream has finally come to fruition: Glashütte is further established as the epicenter of German watchmaking.

Germany’s Chronometer Certification Facility Watch aficionados are aware the term chronometer is the prestigious title reserved for those watches that maintain accuracy under stringent test conditions. Until recently, the only institution authorized to certify watches as chronometers was the Swiss notfor-profit organization, Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC).

This roughly translates to “Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute,” which was founded in 1973 by the five watchmaking cantons of Switzerland: Bern, Geneva, Neuchâtel, Solothurn and Vaud. The term chronometer implies an internationally recognized promise from the certifying authority: This timepiece is guaranteed to operate with the utmost precision and reliability. This process of certification emerged from necessity rather than vanity or talking points for selling products.

Germany served its part in chronometer certification. As successor to the German Naval Observatory, which closed in 1945, the German Hydrographical Institute was primarily responsible for the testing and certification of nautical chronometers.

Germany’s national metrology institute, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt stationed in Braunschweig and Stuttgart, awarded German wristwatches the chronometer distinction for manufactures such as Junghans, Kienzle, Laco and Bifora.

The International Chronometer Commission granted official recognition of the German testing center in 1959, but only a year later – due to a decline in demand – the institute’s best customer, Junghans, discontinued production of its mechanical wristwatch chronometers. Consequently, the Stuttgart testing facility closed about 10-years later; thus, 1970 marked the end of an era of wristwatch chronometers that were manufactured, tested and certified in Germany.

From that point on the COSC shaped the global standards and concepts of chronometer testing. Over 30-years later, in 2004, WEMPE stepped up to try and establish an internationally recognized chronometer-testing center in Glashütte, Saxony. The reasons for doing so were both practical and personal: 1) the Hamburg-based Wempe family had always had close ties with chronometry and wanted a special movement installed in its new line of wristwatches; 2) because their dials read “Made in Germany” the watches were disqualified from COSC certification.

Based on these reasons, the family began collaborating with Thuringian State Office for Weights and Measures (LMET,Landesamt für Mess- und Eichwesen Thüringen) to establish an independent German chronometer-testing facility at a location that had been long associated with precision watchmaking: Glashütte Observatory.

The chronometer-testing facility was built on land provided by WEMPE, but the facilities operation and personnel staffing are administered by LMET.

The German Calibrating Service (DKD, Deutscher Kalibrierdienst) at the Physical-Technical Federal Bureau (bei der Physikalisch-Technischen Bundesanstalt) accredited the calibrating laboratory on the basis of international standards as set forth in ISO/IEC 17025, and German standards outlined in DIN 8319,which further confirms the facility’s specialized competence.Because the agencies involved in accrediting the facility are independent – a strict precondition to international recognition of chronometer certifying – that ensures the impartiality and integrity of the work performed at the testing center. The facility is monitored and inspected on a regular basis by both the federal LMET and state SLME organizations.

The modestly sized laboratory is approximately four-meters by five-meters and contains three heated cabinets and three air-conditioned cabinets used for the climate testing portions of the certification process (two of each are dedicated to mechanical timepieces, the other two are for testing quartz watches).

All data is recorded digitally, summarized and digitally relayed to the Thuringian Office of Weights and Measurements located in Ilmenau. Though the facility has been opened less than a year, demand has already required the construction of a second, expandable laboratory in Glashütte on Altenbergerstrasse equipped with one each heating and air-conditioning cabinets.

The standards to become a German-certified chronometer are arduous under the strict criteria outlined in DIN 8319. The standards as stated in the regulation consists of a 15-day monitoring period for each mechanical watch in the following positions: crown left, crown up, crown down, dial up and dial down.All timepieces submitted for review are turned and tumbled in the heat and air-condition chambers while subject to 60% humidity and ranging temperatures from eight to 38 degrees Celsius (46.4 to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Deviations in time are measure and the watches are wound every 24-hours. In order to qualify for the prestigious chronometer title, the timepieces must endure the environmental and positional tests without losing more than fourseconds, or gaining six-seconds, per day.

Also, the average daily variation cannot be more than five-seconds. The German standard is similar to the international ISO norm adhered to at COSC in Switzerland, but differs in two important ways:

1) DIN 8319 prescribes testing in which the time is set with to-the-second accuracy;

2) the caliber is tested inside of its real case rather than inside a temporary case for later installation. Thus, the German system seems even more precise because the whole watch is certified; caliber installed exactly as the customer would receive it rather than just the movement itself.

The first watches to pass the German chronometer tests are the new WEMPE CHRONOMETERWERKE Glashütte i/SA and the WEMPE ZEITMEISTER Glashütte i/SA lines. Their production affirms: A proud German tradition has been reborn in Glashütte, Saxony.

This article was published originally in issue 10.1 of hr: Watches & Luxury Lifestyle Magazine. Subscribe to hr: magazine and enjoy similar articles www.hrluxury.com.

by Eric Engh, CEO OF Oldwatch.com

A cardstock invite to an “A-list” function in New York? Okay. Held at the new Morgan Library & Museum? Even better. What’s the occasion? A gala affair to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso! Now, that’s something I can warm up to regardless of the weather.

On the evening of November 6, 2006, Jaeger-LeCoultre threw a party at the Morgan Library & Museum to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the legendary Reverso. It was a beautiful, well-attended event with about 400 guests including actors Matt Dillon and Joe Pantoliano.

Although there was no short supply of celebrities, the real superstars were the displays of Reverso watches from vintage to new including the new Squadra Reverso, and the $375,000 Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Triptyque.The first timepiece with three faces and 18 complications demonstrates Jaeger-LeCoultre’s ability to continue innovating.

Jaeger-LeCoultre is an exceptional watch company with a proud 173-year reign; moreover, their flagship Reverso is a extraordinary watch with an intriguing history.

While on a trip to India in 1930, Cesar de Trey, a friend of Jacques David LeCoultre, accepted the challenge of a polo match with some friends. After the match, a British polo player showed De Trey his watch with a broken glass. For some odd reason, British officers liked wearing their watches while they

played. The watches of the era didn’t fare very well under extreme conditions with their crystal exposed. If the crystal broke, then the dial and the hands would soon receive a similar fate.

Many of the watches designed during the World War I used metal mesh-guards over the face of the watch to protect the glass. Even though it protected the dial and hands it made the timepiece difficult to read. Summarily, it was a poor solution to the vexing problem of how to protect the glass and
face of the watch.

This article was published originally in issue 10.1 of hr: Watches & Luxury Lifestyle Magazine. Subscribe to hr: magazine and enjoy similar articles www.hrluxury.com.