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The inside story
Mechanical watches
G Dahri lays bare the soul of a mechanical watch
Mechanical watches. Is it wrong to call them watches with
a soul? I don't think so. A mechanical watch is a work of
art, and you can't help but marvel at the visual splendour
of it all. Just looking at the graceful sweep of the seconds
hand, for instance, brings you pleasure. But it's not just
the aesthetics of the watch that's worth considering for the
art goes hand in hand with the science of timekeeping. This
lies in the intricacy of the movement, which beats at the
very heart of a watch.
A personality is an individual trait that cannot be mass-produced.
Similarly, mechanical watches with complications are created
at the hands of a single watchmaker and in the process gain
a unique personality. In fact, a mechanical watch requires
much more painstaking work than other timepieces. A quartz
watch, for instance, is entirely machine-made and mass-produced.
There's hardly any romance in a caseback that displays an
electronic circuit board. Compare this with the movement of
a Lange. You can gaze lovingly at it for hours.
Of course, there have been arguments about the accuracy of
a mechanical watch. One cannot deny that the quartz is more
accurate than the mechanical, or as good. So, a Rs 3,000 quartz
will keep better time than say, a Rs 2,00,000 mechanical.
Quartz watches are extremely accurate thanks to their high
frequency of vibrations (32 kHz). Their daily variation is
equivalent to much less than a second per day. Comparatively
speaking, the frequencies of oscillations (number of one-way
movements of the regulating organ per hour) mainly used in
mechanical watches range from 21,600 Ah (3Hz) to 28,800 Ah
(4Hz), allowing a variation of less than 10 seconds a day.
Which, considering that they are made mechanically and use
purely mechanical components to keep time, says quite a lot
in their favour.
Indeed, mechanical precision is an indescribable thing. Just
see the perfectly polished parts rotating precisely in their
jewel hole. Heed the crisp snick of chronograph pushers. Or
attune yourself to the click of a rapid date change at exactly
12 am. You don't get these things with a quartz. In fact,
after owning a mechanical you will never want to go back to
a quartz. I never did.
Which brings me to another thing that the mechanicals have
to offer us: companionship. They not only go through life
with us but also continue to be great companions to subsequent
generations as heirlooms.
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Blancpain
Léman's Sonneur de Diane is fitted with an unusually
original new movement design - the calibre 1241. The
movement's self-winding mechanism rewinds both the movement's
mainspring and that of the alarm. The latter's degree
of wind can be gauged at a glance by the position of
the power reserve indicator pointer. For the first time
too, the alarm sub-dial located at 3 o'clock works in
tandem with the indication of the time of day in the
second time zone, displayed by the centre hour and minute
hands. A 24-hour sub-dial at 9 o'clock shows the wearer's
home time.
Technical specifications
Reference: 2041-1542M-53B
Water resistance: 100 metres
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Zenith
The Grande ChronoMaster El Primero XT boasts of the
El Primero 4009 movement, which has all the superb details
of the mythical El Primero 410 movement. That is, it
has a Grande Complication triple date function and moon
phase measuring short time intervals to a tenth of a
second and oscillating at a frequency of 36,000 vibrations/
hour. The calibre even integrates the fly-back function
into the complications of the El Primero 410.
Technical specifications
Power reserve: over 50 hours
Water resistance: 30 metres
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Chopard
The LUC Pro One Watch is the first diver's watch to
be equipped with a LUC movement. The movement with its
two stacked barrels (LUC Twin) is decorated with circular
Cotes de Geneve and its oscillating weight in heavy
metal is engraved with the words Pro One.
Technical specifications
Water resistance: 300 metres
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Girard- Perregaux
The Sea Hawk II, which is dedicated to John Harrison,
conceals within its case an automatic GP 33RO movement
with a power reserve of 46 hours. Shown here is the
new dial in the titanium version. The dark slate-coloured
dial displays small seconds at 10.30, a date window
at 1.30 and a power reserve at 6.
Technical specifications
Water resistance: 300 metres
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A Lange & Shone
The Lange 1 MoonPhase is fitted with the manually wound
calibre L901.5 and features a moon phase display with
continuous hour-wheel drive, accurately computed gear
train with a rate deviation of only one day in 122.6
years.
Technical specifications
Reference: 109.025
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Omega
The Speedmaster Professional - Limited Snoopy Award
Edition uses the Omega calibre 1861 mechanical hand-winding
chronograph movement with hour and minute display, continuous
small seconds hand, central chronograph seconds hand,
30 minute and 12 hour totalisers and a power reserve
of 45 hours.
Technical specifications
Reference: 3578.51.00
Water resistance: 50 metres
Pieces: 5,441 individually numbered pieces
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Raymond Weil
Don Giovanni Cosi Grande flaunts a mechanical movement
with automatic winding that's hand-assembled by watchmakers.
The movement takes full advantage of Switzerland's precision
and technical progress and is the crowning feature of
this timepiece. The chronograph includes the traditional
functions of starting, stopping, restarting and zeroing
and a minutes counter for 30 minutes as well as an hours
counter for 12 hours.
Technical specifications
Reference: 14885 G 00209
Water resistance: 30 metres
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Daniel Jeanrichard
This one's the Bressel 40 mm automatic chronograph,
which is fitted with the calibre DJR 25. The satin finished
steel case of this watch reflects the finest watchmaking
tradition.
Technical specifications
Reference: 25062.01.5141.00
Water resistance: 30 metres
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