Watchismo Times

Jaquet Droz Automaton 'La Machine à Ecrire le Temps' (The Machine that Writes the Time)

Published: April 10, 2009 | 12:56

Jaquet Droz 'La Machine à Ecrire le Temps' (The Machine that Writes the Time)

by Maximilian Büsser via MB&F's Parallel World

"Baselworld 2009 has just finished and, amongst the flurry of new horological creations, the timepiece that really impressed and amazed me wasn't a wristwatch at all, but an incredible horological machine in its own right.

Jaquet Droz's 'La Machine à Ecrire le Temps' - The Machine that Writes the Time.

Manuel Emch, president and head of artistic creation at Montres Jaquet Droz, has done a superb job in reinventing the brand over the last 8 years.

18th century automates from Jaquet Droz: the Draftsman, the Musician and the Writer

Jaquet Droz was one of the most celebrated creators of automatons in the past and in developing this modern time writing machine, they have created one of the most amazing "horological sculptures" to date, as well as added to the brand's rich heritage.

The project was the brainchild of Manuel Emch who had, amongst other objectives, the idea to create an automaton that relates to the 21st century. The result is as impressive as it is poetic. La Machine à Ecrire le Temps is an incredible blend of tradition, kinetic art, high-tech horology . . . and magic.

The development and construction of La Machine à Ecrire le Temps took the best part of a decade. It contains more than 1,200 components, including 84 ball bearings, 50 cams and 9 belts, and took thousands of hours to construct and regulate.

The masterpiece is housed in an unusual cage, whose aluminium frame is fitted with a liquid crystal glass, allowing the owner to mask or unveil the whole movement at will. A light touch activates the mechanism and a stylus writes the time in hours and minutes."

Some antique Jaquet Droz Automaton videos "The Writer" & "The Artist";

video link

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Time for a Woody - Wood Watches Over Time (1590-2009)

Published: February 13, 2009 | 17:15

No, not that Woody.

A visual tour of wristwatches made of wood watches from 1590 to 2009.

One of the first wood watches I ever featured at The Watchismo Times, a 1960s Swank, reminiscent of the George Nelson clocks of the time.

Also previously featured, the incredibly rare Bronnikov all-wood (and bone) watches of the mid-nineteenth century. Even the movements were made of wood! --> LINK

The wood movement

And reaching as far back as I can, here is a portable sundial made of wood from 1590 which also doubled as a gun powder flask and compass --> LINK

Back in the USSR! This wood cased Raketa watch from an amazing collection of Russian watches --> LINK

LIP, mostly known for the super-cool watches of the seventies has a very wide array of other unusual watches like this 60's sterling silver bracelet watch with wood dial and curved inlaid wood strips in the bracelet.

And some of Richard Arbib's very rare wood dialed Hamilton Electric watches from the 1950s and 60s. Above is the Flight II prototype.

The classic design of the Hamilton Ventura also had a prototype with a wood face. Courtesy of Rene Rondeau.

And an collection of wood dial Hamilton Sherwood with automatic movements. These did make it to production in the 60s but are quite scarce.

More styles of Sherwoods

Original Sherwood strap with inlaid wood

A vintage Bulova Accutron with wood bezel
(All Accutron Posts-->LINK)

An unusual vintage Jowissa wood cased watch

The brand new limited edition Quiksilver Ray watch, an eco-friendly concept watch with a case and bracelet made of solid ebony and using a "Green" non-battery automatic mechanical movement.

More about The Ray --> LINK

The Nixon Rotolog, a modern interpretation of the LIP Baschmakoff Jump Hour of the early seventies but now with a interior light and an entire series made with all types of wood including bamboo and teak (shown above)

Nixon Rotolog collection --> LINK

One of my favorite modern watches using wood, the Nixon Murf featuring wood veneers cover the top half of the face and two discs for hours and minutes below. Eacy style has a different color light for the dial by pressing the big horizontal crowns. And one of it's truly unique features is the way the time is changed, you unscrew the top crown, and then press down to electrically forward the discs. It looks like a Bang & Olufsen stere turntable!

Nixon Murf collection --> LINK

A pair of swanky ladies watches from the modern brand Vestal utilizing Rosewood, Ebony, and Maple for cases and bracelets.

Vestal Wood Watch collection --> LINK

Shooting back up to the higher end of wood watches including the Jaquet Droz above. They have produced watches with all sorts of materials including meteorite.

Last but not least, Svend Anderson's Eros "Navigation Pleasure" model (below). The one-of-a-kind Eros has marquetry work with four types of wood and a secret 10 moving part erotic automaton on the back of the watch.

Related posts on The Watchismo Times;
Watches made of Bone
Meteorite Watches

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"Minute Man" by David Colman for The New York Times

Published: September 10, 2008 | 10:55

From this weekend's New York Times "T" Magazine;

MINUTE MAN
WHO HAS TIME FOR COMPLICATED WATCHES? NOT DAVID COLMAN.

It was one thing when the cellphone replaced the cigarette. But now killer apps have replaced killer abs, and the chicest parties throng with guys showing how they can make their iPhones look like Magic 8 Balls. It’s enough to make a man long for the days when all you heard from even the costliest accessory was the faint tick of a sleek watch.

But these days, the watch thing is also complicated — literally. Watches, like phones, are now viaducts of nonessential information. And the more complications (as extraneous indicators are called in the trade), the rarer and more expensive the timepiece. Moon phases, leap years, multiple time zones, multiple-dial chronographs, depth meters, power reserves. One very cool watch, Meccanico, by de Grisogono, looks like an old-fashioned L.C.D. but is in fact mechanical, made of fluorescent green pieces that move in and out of slots to create those squared-off numbers. In a similar vein, Audemars Piguet has recreated the old-school chronograph with its Royal Oak Carbon Concept. Tricked out with ceramic, titanium and carbon with a special ‘‘linear chronograph,’’ the little time machine looks like something James Bond would use to stop a ‘‘Quantum of Solace.’’ Or, at the very least, maybe it could tell him when to duck to avoid one. It also features the most sublime and silly complication of all: the tourbillon, which is so complicated, almost metacomplicated, that I can’t understand what it really is or does, and have given up trying. If someone who does understand tries to explain it to you, move away quickly or you and your watch can kiss a few hours goodbye.

de Grisogono Meccanico (prev feature->link)

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Carbon Concept
(previous feature->link)

I can tell you this: it was invented at the turn of the 19th century by Abraham-Louis Breguet, one of history’s great watchmakers. In an effort to minimize the effects of gravity and instability on the pocketwatch and keep time more accurately, he devised a rotating cage for the escapement (please don’t ask) and balance wheel (ditto).

Tourbillon

No one seems positive, however, that gravity is that big a problem for today’s watches. Even so, the tourbillon remains the last word in superfluous virtuosity, and whatever it does and whether it really uperfluous virtuosity, and whatever it does and whether it really does it or not, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and all the other best names make them, and they all cost as much as taking out a hit on your boss. So choose wisely.

Just to give you the most for your money, watchmakers put extra ingenuity in showing tourbillons whirling and whooshing away. The young and ambitious watch house Greubel Forsey makes, among others, a remarkable Quadruple Tourbillon that resembles a modern version of the Antikythera Mechanism, the ancient clocklike device recovered more than a century ago from an ancient Mediterranean shipwreck. Using X-ray tomography that allows them to peer through the centuries of corrosion and buildup, scientists have discovered that the fabled, mysterious 2,100-year-old thingamajig was able to keep track of, for starters, the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games, the frequency of solar eclipses and the entire Metonic calendar year (which was more like two decades).

Greubel Forsey Quadruple Tourbillon
(previous features->link)

Antikythera Mechanism
(previous feature->link)

So complications are nothing new. Lately, though, some watchmakers have forsaken the Old World charm of a 19th-century face for the midcentury masculinity that has made ‘‘Mad Men’’ such a hit. These include Vacheron Constantin’s fully customizable Quai de l’Ile (created by the same man who designed the Swiss bank notes), Girard- Perregaux’s Vintage 1945 Off-Center Hour, Patek Philippe’s newest version of its superthin Grand Complication and the one-handed watch by the ultrastylish Swiss watchmaker Jaquet Droz.

Vacheron Constantin Quai de l’Ile

Girard Perregaux 1945 Off-Center Hour & Minute

Jaquet Droz One-handed Numerus Clausus

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy understands the power of simplicity: the first lady of France made her flashy husband lose the chunky Rolex and gave him a simple, sleek Patek Philippe. It became an instant symbol of his newly understated presidential élan.

Then again, customizable watches like Vacheron Constantin’s choose-your-owncomplications beauty may soon be the 21st century’s most desirable status symbol. But if that’s the case, why can’t it be customized to indicate worthier complications? The size of my carbon footprint? My biceps? My bank balance? The sky-high number of my I.Q., or my discreetly low number of friends on Facebook? Or why not one that keeps track of my calorie intake, my stress level and my dry cleaning? You know, something more like a … wristwife.

But as any potential mate would soon discover, I also come fully loaded with complications.

Original article on The New York Times-->LINK

See also;
All Watch Complication Posts
All Tourbillon Posts

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The Time that fell to Earth - Meteorite Watches

Published: September 18, 2007 | 00:28

It seems appropriate to follow up the Omega Moon Mission Collection with another extraterrestrial themed timepiece -- Wristwatches made of meteorite, the truest of space-age materials.

These rare rocks traveled millions of years to find this infinitely tiny speck of a planet, somehow not completely burn up in our atmosphere, find their way to land instead of water, be fortunate enough to be discovered by modern man, delivered to a luxury watch company, and wind up on your privileged little wrist.

"Iron meteorites are composed primarily of various alloys of iron and nickel, and are derived from molten planetary cores that were broken apart billions of years ago. The crystalline patterns within Meteorites are known as a "Widmanstätten Pattern" or structure, named for Alois von Beckh Widmanstätten. These patterns can only form in the vacuum of space where the molten pieces of planetary cores come into contact with very few molecules to which they can transfer their heat and thereby cool. The large metallic crystals characteristic of meteorites require literally millions of years of cooling to form from a molten planetary core fragment. It has been estimated that it took about 1000 years for these molten pieces of planetary core to cool by just 1 degree celsius."

I'm getting carried away...so here are a few examples of meteor watches over the years;

Up at the very top are a variety of Jaquet Droz Meteorite watches. They have been producing many rare mineral dials in recent years and have been using meteorite for some of their most exclusive models.

A 2001 Rolex Daytona with meteorite dial

And the VERY rare Kryptonite Daytona
(some VERY bad watch humor)

1989 Ulysse Nardin "Planetarium Copernicus"

An phenomenal astronomical watch with six meteorite rings. A domed sapphire crystal divided into 12 sections that start from the center (the Earth) and radiate outward in a spider design. The six revolving meteorite rings are engraved with the names of five planets, each on a gold cartouche fixed with a central disc representing the Sun. The Earth disc fixed to one of the meteorite rings attached to the Moon which rotates around the Earth. The outer gold ring is engraved with the 12 signs of the zodiac and the months. One of 65 produced.

Antoine Preziuso's Calibre T21 Muonionalusta Meteorite Tourbillon, No.1 above for the 2005 "Only Watch" auction.

White gold Piaget Polo Meteorite

Martin Braun "Selene Meteorite"

"What goes with a moon phase better than authentic meteorite?" The oversized moonphase display is one of the most realistic, with accuracy to the hour. Displayed by two dark disks rotating under a translucent moon.

1990s Corum Meteorite Peory
Being auctioned here-->Link
And the Corum Meteorite Zagami #2-->Link

So, how does one top meteorite as a rare material? Perhaps the answer begins with Romain Jerome. His latest watches have introduced a series made from the actual rusted steel of the Titanic. Incredibly expensive models like the Tourbillon model shown below. Even the dial somehow integrates recovered coal from the shipwreck.

Romain Jerome Titanic DNA Tourbillon

Update! I had no idea while writing this meteorite watch story, this deadly Kryptonite-like meteor struck Peru and has been making the locals sick!-->Link

Don't forget to enter The Watchismo Times 1st anniversary vintage chronograph giveway!-->LINK

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Art of Movement - Photography of Guido Mocafico

Published: May 16, 2007 | 12:59

Thanks to the MB&F Our World Blog for leading me to the current exhibition of French photographer Guido Mocafico at the Hamiltons Gallery in London. His latest works are large prints of complicated mechanical watch movements including the Chopard Quantieme Perpetuel Phase de Lune above. All 105 cm x 105cm (41+"inches) each.

Artist's statement

Breguet 'Tradition'

Audemars Piguet 'Tourbillon Repetition Minutes Squellette'

Jaquet Droz 'Douze Fuseaux Horaires'

A. Lange & Sohne 'Double Split'

Other movements exhibited; IWC, Gerald Genta, Greubel Forsey, FP Journe, Daniel Roth, and Patek Philippe.

Hamiltons Gallery-->Link
Mocafico website-->Link

via MB&F 'Our World' Blog-->Link

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THE WATCHISMO TIMES WATCH BLOG A reliquary of obscure timepieces from bygone eras as well as the cutting-edge watch designs of today.

Jaquet Droz Automaton 'La Machine à Ecrire le Temps' (The Machine that Writes the Time)

Time for a Woody - Wood Watches Over Time (1590-2009)

"Minute Man" by David Colman for The New York Times

The Time that fell to Earth - Meteorite Watches

Art of Movement - Photography of Guido Mocafico

Report "Watchismo Times"