BON VIVANT
Timeless Watches
16 May 2008
Before there was artificial light, telling the time in the dark required lighting up a candle. In 1676, British clergyman Edward Barlow solved the problem by installing a rack and snail system in watches that included tiny hammers and gongs to tell the quarter at the press of a button.
The first minute repeater watch was developed by Thomas Mudge, another Briton, in 1750.
A minute repeater watch told time by sounding the hour, the quarter, and the minutes at the press of a button. Though the minute repeater watches went out of fashion after the advent of electricity, they still remain the epitome of horological sophistication.
The creation and fine-tuning of a minute repeater watch can take thousands of hours. It is more complicated than a tourbillion or a perpetual calendar watch.
There is a price to be paid for such craftsmanship. A minute repeater watch can easily cost $100,000. At one end of the spectrum of the most expensive minute repeater watches is the Breguet for the price of which you could buy a Lamborghini Murcielago. On the other end is the Vacheron Constantin, with which you could buy a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 sports car.
Would you wear a work of art or drive one?
(Businessworld issue 20-26 May 2008) |
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