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COVERSTORY
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seconds. Like his very first pocket watch and his first wristwatch, the new movements are in 18-karat gold.
 This
fascinating mix of complications-tourbillon, remontoir and dead seconds, which to date has not been matched by any other brand in a production series watch,
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Invenit et fecit means just that:
invented and made.
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A few years later he made another tourbillon, this time with a remontoir d´égalité.
Less
than ten years later, Journe was wearing his very own tourbillon wristwatch with a remontoir d´égalité This was the prototype of the Tourbillon
Souverain.
It
was also the very first wristwatch to be fitted with a remontoir d´égalité and the very first one Journe ever made. It should also be noted
that he made the entire movement of this watch, including gear-train, in 18-karat gold.
At
the launch of his own brand in 1999, it came as no surprise to learn that the first model on offer from F. P. Journe was the Tourbillon Souverain, with remontoir
d´égalité naturally.
Over
the following years it was joined by the impressive Resonance and Octa calibers and even a one-off sonnerie. However, the Tourbillon Souverain reigned supreme.
For
most talented watchmakers (and businessmen), the saying, "If it ain´t broke don´t fix it" is as good a maxim as any and the much admired (and
sold) tourbillon certainly did not need fixing. For François-Paul Journe, however, invenit et fecit means just that (invented and made), and 2004 saw him
raising his technical bar even higher. The new Tourbillon Souverain was launched, this time sporting not only a remontoir d´égalité, but also
dead-beat
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deserves a deeper understanding. This may be easier if we look at the complications one
at a time.
The Tourbillon
Invented by Breguet over 200 years ago (1795), the tourbillon is a rotating cage that houses the escapement and oscillating balance. At that time, pocket watches
generally rested a vertical position in a gentlemen´s fob pocket. In that vertical plane, however, the watch could be oriented: crown up, crown down, crown
left or crown right. In each of those positions gravity pulled on the balance and escapement from a different angle, causing the watch to slightly speed up or slow
down. This made it difficult to regulate the watch to keep accurate time: especially in those days of split, bimetallic balances and steel hairsprings.
By
putting the escapement (balance, hairspring, pallet and escape wheel) in a rotating cage, the positionally induced errors (in the same plane as the tourbillon)
are averaged out, thus making the watch a better timekeeper. Ideally, there would be no positional errors and so no need for a tourbillon to average them out. While
manufacturing techniques and material technology have come a long way in reducing those errors since Breguet´s day, positional errors do still exist.
The
tourbillon first made an appearance in a wristwatch over fifty years ago when Andre Bornand made a one-off model for Patek Philippe in 1945. A few years later Lip
put a tourbillon in a wristwatch, then Omega made twelve wristwatch tourbillons. However, it was Audemars Piguet in 1985 that gave the world the first serially
produced wristwatch tourbillon. This was also the first automatic tourbillon and the smallest and thinnest one ever produced–and as far as I know, it still
is.
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MAY 2005
INTERNATIONAL WATCH
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