CHIMING TIME

WORDS : Roberta Naas

Deemed one of the most revered and beloved complicated timepieces in the world, chiming watches actually sound the time using a series of gongs and hammers that work in unison for harmonious allure. There are several types, but the most well-known are minute repeaters, activated by a slide or pusher on the side of the case, and sonneries, which traditionally chime every hour without requiring activation, though they are equipped with a silence button.

Minute repeaters chime the hours, quarter hours, and minutes past the quarter-hour using different tones and combinations of tones. Usually, the hours utilize a low-pitched note, then a combination of a low- and high-pitched notes sound the quarter hours, and a high-pitched tone rings out the minutes past the quarter-hour. Similarly, decimal repeaters chime the hours and every 10-minute interval, and five-minute repeaters do the same with five-minute increments.

Chiming watches date back to the clock towers of the 15th century that would strike the hours to let the townspeople know the time. Later, 18th-century chiming clocks were developed for royalty and the wealthy, so they could decipher the time in the dark without rising to light an oil lamp.

Today, chiming watches are among the most difficult watches to build, generally housing hundreds of tiny mechanical parts that all work together to not only track the time, but also to make music of it. The movements inside are a complex labyrinth of gears, wheels, springs, barrels, and other

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT components, with the most important parts being hammers and gongs. While most watches use one or two hammers, some of the ultimate haute horological pieces can have three or more hammers and gongs.

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The Chopard L.U.C Strike One, with chime-in-passing mechanism, strikes only at the passing of each hour thanks to the patented sapphire gong that is directly attached to the crystal. A carved aperture at 1 o’clock displays the hammer. The 275-part self-winding movement is housed in a 40-millimeter ethical rose gold case and is chronometer certified. Only 25 will be made. $63,000.

So, how does a repeater work? Essentially, a tensioning spring arms the repeater when the wearer presses a lever on the case side. It immediately comes to life, sending the exact time information to a series of racks, cams, and levers that activate the hammer(s) to hit the gong(s), wrapped around the periphery of the watch movement. In the past, those gongs were made of metal, as were the hammers, but recently the top watch brands that produce repeaters have been turning to sapphire crystal to create an even purer sound. Easily one of the most challenging feats when it comes to building the movements of these acoustical beauties is getting the sound right. When the hammers hit the gongs, they must have the perfect reverberation to produce the right loudness, pitch, and length of tone. While the shape, material, weight, hardness, and number of hammers and gongs play an important role here, the human ear is also vital. In the end, if the sound doesn’t sound right to the master watchmaker, it goes back to the drawing board.

Because it generally takes a single watchmaker anywhere from 200 to 300 hours to assemble and tune a minute repeater movement, these watches are not only incredibly rare, but also — rightfully so — among the most expensive in the world.