Reviews
50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: Battle of the Haute Horlogers
Reviews
50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: Battle of the Haute Horlogers
Patek Philippe was the first to really act on this, as Philippe Stern actively focused on building up the company’s in-house capacities, something that Thierry Stern has furthered. The Lemania-based CH 27, though already a legendary beast, still had its roots in Lemania. The need to reduce that reliance on Lemania pushed Patek Philippe to design its own in-house chronograph, one that in fact debuted as a hand-wound chronograph in a ladies’ watch. The CH 29 was a rare creature in that it had a lateral coupling system.
The CH 28 demonstrated that not only could Patek deliver incredible hand-wound movements that bore its rarefied Patek Philippe Seal, it could also compete with other fine watchmakers in sporty watches. The Aquanaut Chronograph reference 5968 came along last year to great fanfare and was immediately pounced on.
For the 20th anniversary of the Overseas collection, the brand similarly wanted to make an impact, and rolling it out with a new in-house series of movements made perfect sense. An in-house chronograph was essential to the collection and they pursued it rigorously. The 4Hz, 263-component chronograph with column wheel and vertical clutch stood out even among its peers for several reasons, one of which is the unique craftsmanship found in the movement itself.
The one most renowned watchmaker that still builds its timepieces based on supplied ébauches is Audemars Piguet, but that’s also changed this year. For the longest time, AP’s renowned Royal Oaks and Royal Oak Offshore chronographs were powered by its calibers 2385 and 2126/2840 respectively. These were based off the Frédéric Piguet 1185 and the Jaeger-LeCoultre 889/1 with a Dubois-Dépraz module respectively. The 1185, as you may recall, holds the honor of being the slimmest automatic chronograph. It’s a remarkable movement, impressive on multiple levels.
But Audemars Piguet’s focus on complete autonomy, thanks to the strategy of François-Henry Bennahmias, made developing an in-house chronograph a priority. According to the brand, Bennahmias in 2013 got his management team together and locked them in a room, saying “no one leaves the room till we have agreed on the important choices and laid the inspiration for the development of a new chronograph movement.”
That was fulfilled this year with the caliber 4400 (Audemars Piguet also introduced the base caliber 4300) in the CODE 11.59 line. We’ve covered more on the watch here and you can catch a video of our founder Wei Koh speaking with Bennahmias at SIHH 2019 for the collection here. The movement features a column wheel with vertical clutch with an escapement running at 4Hz. The flyback chronograph has a variable inertia balance and bi-directional winding using 2 reversers – a solution first applied in the 4101 caliber with the AP escapement. Power reserve stands at an ample 70 hours.
Clearly this isn’t an exhaustive list of automatic chronographs in the industry, and there’s plenty more we haven’t covered. But what’s clear in the focus on developing fine chronographs is that while there’s plenty to choose from, they originated from the same roots, and continue to push the limits on precision timekeeping measurements. The El Primero remains a prized heavyweight in the game, but its competition is rapidly catching up.
Check out the other articles in our series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the automatic chronograph:
• 50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: Who Came First?
• 50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: The Second Wind
• 50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: In the Age of Quartz
• 50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: The Drive In-house
• 50th Year of the Automatic Chronograph: Race to be the Best