Category: Basics

Identifying Watch Movements with the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce

Catalogs for identifying watch movements exist from about 1930 on. The oldest catalog I know of is from Ebauches SA in 1928. But how can you identify even older movements?

Malleray Model Nr. 6, 1909

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Paul Perret and the Swiss Patent No. 1

The Swiss Industrial Property Office (German: Eidgenössisches Amt für gewerbliches Eigenthum, French: Bureau Fédéral de la Propriété Intellectuelle) was founded on November 15, 1888, with headquarters in Bern, and started operations with only seven employees. Today it is called the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (German: IGE = Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum) and has about 300 employees.

The most famous employee of this office might be Albert Einstein, who started his service in July 1902 at the age of 23 as technical expert third class. But it should not be about him here!

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Direct and indirect, central and small seconds

Sorry, this post is only available in German!

Heute gibt es mal etwas leichtere Kost. Wir schauen uns an, was genau damit gemeint ist, wenn bei Uhrwerken von direkter bzw. indirekter Sekunde die Rede ist. Und von der kleinen Sekunde, der dezentralen Sekunde, der Zentralsekunde oder schleichenden Sekunde. Eine kleine Sekunde gibt es auch in der Musik, dort im Gegensatz zur großen Sekunde. Das hat aber so gar nichts mit der Sekundenanzeige bei Uhren zu tun!

Nitzsche Moonwalker Chronograph mit Valjoux 7758

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