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Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillion () or tourbillon (; " whirlwind") is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement to increase accuracy. Conceived by the British watchmaker and inventor John Arnold, it was developed by his friend the Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet and patented by Breguet on 26 June 1801. In a tourbillon, the escapement and balance wheel are mounted in a rotating cage, with the goal of eliminating errors of poise in the balance giving a uniform weight. Tourbillons are still included in some modern wristwatches, where the mechanism is usually exposed on the watch's face to showcase it. Historically, Breguet’s tourbillon was conceived to counteract the adverse effects of gravity on a pocket watch’s regulating system, particularly in vertical positions. Pocket watches were typically worn vertically in waistcoat pockets, which led to gravitational distortion of the hairspring. The tourbillon aimed to average out these positional errors by rotat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Greubel Forsey
Greubel Forsey is a Swiss watchmaking company specializing in complicated, high-end timepieces. It was launched in 2004 by Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey and is based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Greubel Forsey makes timepieces with multiple tourbillons and inclined balance wheels with the aim of improving timekeeping precision. Founders Robert Greubel grew up in Alsace, France and began his horological career by working with his watchmaker father in the family shop, Greubel Horlogerie. In 1987 Greubel moved to Switzerland to join the International Watch Company (IWC), where he helped develop their Grand Complication. In 1990 he joined Renaud & Papi SA (now Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi SA) as a prototypist for complicated movements and rose to become managing director and partner. Stephen Forsey grew up in St Albans, England, where he was inspired by his father's passion for mechanics and engineering. From 1987 to 1992 Forsey specialized in antique clock restoratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Girard-Perregaux
Girard-Perregaux SA () is a luxury Swiss watch ''manufacture'' with its origins dating back to 1791. In 2022, then-owner French luxury group Kering sold its stake in Sowind Group SA, the parent company of Girard-Perregaux, via management buyout. Headquartered in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, the company opened the Girard-Perregaux Museum near its headquarters in Villa Marguerite in 1999. It is best known for the historic Tourbillon with three gold bridges, which was awarded a gold medal at the 1889 International Exposition in Paris soon after the launch of the watch. Other notable models from the company include the collection 1966, Vintage 1945, and models such as Tri-Axial Tourbillon and Laureato, an icon inspired from the 1970s. History Early history In 1791, watchmaker and goldsmith Jean-François Bautte signed his first watches. He created a manufacturing company in Geneva, grouping for the first time ever all the watchmaking facets of that time. This included the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Watch
A watch is a timepiece carried or worn by a person. It is designed to maintain a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or another type of bracelet, including metal bands or leather straps. A pocket watch is carried in a pocket, often attached to a chain. A stopwatch is a type of watch that measures intervals of time. During most of their history, beginning in the 16th century, watches were mechanical devices, driven by clockwork, powered by winding a mainspring, and keeping time with an oscillating balance wheel. These are known as '' mechanical watches''. In the 1960s the electronic ''quartz watch'' was invented, powered by a battery and keeping time with a vibrating quartz crystal. By the 1980s it had taken over most of the watch market, in what became known as the quartz revolution (or the quartz crisis in Switzerland, whose renowned watch industry it decima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Purnell (company)
Purnell is a Swiss watch manufacturer. The company was founded in 2017 and was headquartered on Rue du Rhône 80 in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2024, Purnell declared bankruptcy. History The company was founded in 2017, and produces manually wound tourbillon watches. Their movements are designed by watchmaker Eric Coudray, who also invented their "spherion" systems, a high-velocity triple-axis tourbillon. The company is known for creating Escape II, a watch with two triple-axis tourbillon systems. In 2021, Purnell partnered with France Football to create a pair of watches which were awarded to winners of the Ballon d’Or. In 2022, they became the official timekeeper of AS Monaco. In March 2022, it partnered with READYMADE to make a set of watches with straps made of recycled fabric from WWII US military surplus. Purnell has also partnered with Italian footballer Fabio Cannavaro Fabio Cannavaro (; born 13 September 1973) is an Italian professional association football, foo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Breguet (brand)
Breguet () is a Swiss luxury watch, clock and jewelry manufacturer founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775. Headquartered in L'Abbaye, Switzerland, Breguet is one of the oldest surviving watchmaking brands and a pioneer of numerous watchmaking technologies such as the tourbillon, which was developed into a practical solution by Abraham Breguet in 1801. Abraham Breguet also invented and produced the world's first self-winding watch (the ''Perpétuelle'') in 1780, as well as the world's first wristwatch in 1810 (the Breguet No.2639, for Caroline Bonaparte, Queen of Naples). Breguet is a highly regarded watch manufacturer. Over the years, notable Breguet patrons and timepiece owners include Emperor of the French Napoléon Bonaparte, King George III, Queen Victoria, Alexandre I of Russia, Ettore Bugatti, Sir Winston Churchill, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Gioachino Rossini, Arthur Rubinstein and so on. The ''Breguet & Fils, Paris No. 2667 (1814)'' pocket watch is among t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mechanical Watch
A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a Movement (clockwork), clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio clock, radio watches, which are quartz watches synchronized to an atomic clock via radio waves. A mechanical watch is driven by a mainspring which must be wound either periodically by hand or via a Automatic watch, self-winding mechanism. Its force is transmitted through a series of gears to power the balance wheel, a weighted wheel which oscillates back and forth at a constant rate. A device called an escapement releases the watch's wheels to move forward a small amount with each swing of the balance wheel, moving the watch's hands forward at a constant rate. The escapement is what makes the 'ticking' sound which is heard in an operating mechanical watch. Mechanical watches evolved in Europe in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jaeger LeCoultre
Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre SA, or simply Jaeger-LeCoultre (), is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer founded by Antoine LeCoultre in 1833 and is based in Le Sentier, Switzerland. Since 2000, the company has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss luxury group Richemont. Jaeger-LeCoultre is regarded as a top-tier Richemont brand. It has hundreds of inventions, patents, and more than one thousand movements to its name, including the world's smallest movement, one of the world's most complicated wristwatches (Grande Complication), and a timepiece of near-perpetual movement (the ''Atmos clock''). Watch enthusiasts refer to the brand as the watchmaker's watchmaker. History Early history The earliest records of the LeCoultre family in Switzerland date from the 16th century, when Pierre LeCoultre (circa 1530 – circa 1600), a French Huguenot, fled to Geneva from Lizy-sur-Ourcq, France to escape religious persecution. In 1558, he obtained the status of “inhabitant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Complication (horology)
In horology, a complication is any feature of a timepiece beyond the display of hours, minutes and seconds. A timepiece indicating only hours, minutes and seconds is known as a simple movement. Common complications include date or day-of-the-week indicators, alarms, chronographs (stopwatches), and automatic winding mechanisms. Complications may be found in any clock, but they are most notable in mechanical watches where the small size makes them difficult to design and assemble. A typical date-display chronograph may have up to 250 parts, while a particularly complex watch may have a thousand or more parts. Watches with several complications are referred to as ''grandes complications.'' Types Timing * Chronograph, with a second hand that can be stopped and started to function as a stopwatch. ** Double chronograph or ''rattrapante'', multiple second hands for split-second, lap timing or timing multiple events ** Flyback chronograph, allowing rapid reset of the chronogr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Abraham-Louis Breguet
Abraham-Louis Breguet (; 10 January 1747 – 17 September 1823), born in Neuchâtel, then a Prussian principality, was a Swiss-French horologist who made many innovations in the course of a career in watchmaking industry, including the tourbillon. He was the founder of the Breguet company, which is now a luxury watch division of the Swiss Swatch Group. In his lifetime he was considered the leading watchmaker of his day, and he built up a clientele that included many leading public figures and members of the European nobility. Alongside his friend and contemporary John Arnold, Breguet is now widely acknowledged as one of the greatest horologists of all time. One of his famous ancestors was Jean Breguet (who died in 1593) a Protestant pastor in Neuchâtel very much influenced by the ideas of John Calvin. Life Breguet was born in Neuchâtel to Jonas-Louis Breguet and Suzanne-Marguerite Bolle. Breguet's father died in 1758 when he was ten, and his formal schooling ende ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
John Arnold (watchmaker)
John Arnold (1736 – 11 August 1799) was an English watchmaker and inventor. John Arnold was the first to design a watch that was both practical and accurate, and also brought the term " chronometer" into use in its modern sense, meaning a precision timekeeper. His technical advances enabled the quantity production of marine chronometers for use on board ships from around 1782. The basic design of these has remained with a few modifications unchanged until the late twentieth century. His legacy includes, together with Abraham-Louis Breguet, being one of the inventors of the modern mechanical watch. One of his most important inventions, the overcoil balance spring, is still used in most mechanical wristwatches. It was from around 1770 that Arnold developed the portable precision timekeeper, almost from the point where John Harrison ended his work in this field. But, compared to Harrison's complicated and expensive watch, Arnold's basic design was simple whilst consistently acc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
