{"id":13034,"date":"2022-06-16T12:22:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T10:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.my-watchsite.com\/blog\/?p=13034"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:31:26","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T12:31:26","slug":"the-minute-repeaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.my-watchsite.com\/blog\/the-minute-repeaters\/","title":{"rendered":"Minute repeaters\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pose
Assembly of the ultra-thin Bvlgari Octo minute repeater calibre.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Minute repeaters: expressing power through music\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sounding the time, or announcing it some way or another, has always been a display of power, for princes and other eminent people. Very early in history, as soon as the mid-12th century in the West, cities have adapted to mechanical time and have succeeded in making the belfies ring the hours to affirm their power in the countryside.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Montre
Pocket watch with on-demand repetition and protective cases. Mid-18th century\u2013 \u00a9 Antiquorum.<\/strong><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The hour was rung to be heard from a distance, if it could not be read on a clock dial, and had to be regular, like\u2026 well, like clockwork. This new way of dividing the work day was opposed to solar time, that changed with the seasons. Too often, it can be read that minute repeater watches were invented to allow their owners to know the time during the night. However, these instruments were actually created for those who could afford it, to make their inner circle know, in salons or at parties, how powerful they were, through their ability to ring the time, just like the Church and the big cities before them. Do not underestimate the power of announcement!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genesis of acoustic time\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the 17th century, the watch was still too inaccurate, but often featured high-level functions, such as calendars with astrological and scientific indications. As the\u00a0craft\u00a0guilds\u00a0of Geneva indicated in 1601, obtaining the title of watchmaking master required creating a timepiece displaying astronomical indications and the alarm clock function. Thus, the watch was able, quite early in watchmaking history, to tell the time in sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Breguet
The\u00a0Breguet Tradition 7087 Minute Repeater<\/a>\u00a0in gold with modern calibre inspired by those of the master watchmaker and founder. The bell, with its non-traditional shape, can easily be seen above the dial.\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1676, Englishman Daniel Quare\u00a0(1649-1724)\u00a0offered a mechanical piece that was able to ring quarter hours, made possible by a mechanical assembly consisting of\u00a0balances, spirals, springs and levers. However, other publications insist that the oldest known watch with repetition is a piece made in Friedberg, Germany, around 1710. The British watchmaking industry was then dominant, so it is believable that this invention should be British. But the news started to spread, and competitors strove to outdo their rivals and offer mechanical assemblies able to go even further. The competition was in full swing when Thomas Mudge, another Englishman and a pupil of George Graham (working from 1738 to 1794), offered the first watch equipped with a function that enabled its owner to make it chime on demand: hours, quarters, but also minutes elapsed from the strike of the quarters. From this date and by convention, the watchmaking world called this striking mechanism mode a minutes repeater.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mouvement
Mechanical movement with minute repeater. Exploded view of the Louis Vuitton Tambour Minute Repeater\u2019s calibre.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The golden age of the minute repeater<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The men of the 18th century wasted no time in making the watch into an emblem of progress. They were aware of how difficult it was to create watches, and they considered the \u00ab\u00a0minute repeater \u00bb to be the \u00ab\u00a0queen\u00a0\u00bb function, that only the best craftsmen could create and obviously, only the wealthiest enthusiasts could afford. Thus, John Arnold, a talented English watchmaker, offered to king George III a ring watch with repetition, so scaled down that it immediately earned its creator a reputation of excellence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Montre
Louis Vuitton Tambour Minute Repeater<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Watch in white gold.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To get an idea of the value of these instruments at that time, just remember that minute repeater watches were as expensive as they are today, and this is despite the ability of current brands to mechanise parts of the manufacturing process. In this competition, the French were not lacking in talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antoine Thiout the elder, a watchmaker who wrote a treatise that bears his name, obtained very satisfying results in 1741. Julien Le Roy later further improved the system. The pieces offered were thinner and had better auditive quality. In the momentum, Jean-Antoine Lepine, born in Chalex in the commune of Gex (in the Ain department of France), created in 1720, at the height of his career, a new simplified repetition system for the winding controls and the mode of striking mechanism. In 1763, he specialised in the \u201ctoc\u201d repetition, a mechanism wherein the hammers strike directly on the case middle, rather than on a bell or a gong, to produce a vibration that is only perceptible by the bearer of the instrument.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"La
The\u00a0<\/strong>Bvlgari<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sound the right time\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The minute repeater is the acoustic realisation of a nearly ultimate luxury. These pieces, created by the biggest maisons, express the very essence of the watchmakers\u2019 savoir-faire. The movements equipped with this function ring the hours (deep tone), the quarters (high-pitched and deep tone) and the minutes (high-pitched tone) from the last quarters. However, due to very steep\u00a0manufacturing costs, many watchmakers have tried various mechanical developments to offer timepieces with more economical striking mechanisms to the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jaeger-LeCoultre
Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grande Tradition Minute Repeater.<\/strong><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These are pieces that only ring the hours and the quarters. Watches with\u00a0half-quarter repeaters\u00a0have also existed. These pieces in particular, developed by Breguet in the second half of the 19th century, have then been put aside and replaced by the instruments equipped with five-minute repeaters. These rather bourgeois instruments feature in many gold\u00a0pocket watches from the late 19th century. They can now be acquired\u00a0\u00a0and are priced by weight of the case, providing an opportunity to afford a repetition watch at a low cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Credor Spring Drive Minute Repeater watch, a piece with decimal repetition. A creation from the Seiko Group.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But when you\u2019re ready to go looking for them, you can also find some modern pieces, offered by smaller maisons, equipped with a calibre including this function offered by Dubois-D\u00e9praz. For the sake of being exhaustive, note that there are also a few brands, such as Credor (Seiko Group) that offer times rung on a decimal basis, in other words, 10 minutes by 10 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Minute Repeater Ultra-Thin<\/strong><\/a>. A shining example of the genre.\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It works, but you need to know it in advance not to get it wrong. Because, the goal, of course, is to hear the time only to read it afterwards, but simply to hear it, and to know how to translate the music into time\u2026 Because, in the end, it is money. Therefore,\u00a0there is much to be gained by having good ears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
F.P. Journe, Repetition Souveraine<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0A marvel of balance, designed and made in the very centre of Geneva. A rare and powerful luxury.<\/strong><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Read also:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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