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Patek Philippe SA is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer, located in the Canton of Geneva and the Vallée de Joux. Established in 1839, it is named after two of its founders, Antoni Patek and Adrien Philippe. Since 1932, the company has been owned by the Stern family in Switzerland and remains the last family-owned independent watch manufacturer in Geneva. Patek Philippe is one of the oldest watch manufacturers in the world with an uninterrupted watchmaking history since its founding. It designs and manufactures timepieces as well as movements, including some of the most complicated mechanical watches. The company maintains over 400 retail locations globally and over a dozen distribution centers across Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania. In 2001, it opened the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva.
Vacheron Constantin SA is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer founded in 1755. Since 1996, it has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Richemont Group. Vacheron Constantin is the second oldest Swiss manufacturer and one of the oldest watch manufacturers in the world with an uninterrupted watchmaking history since its foundation in 1755. It employs around 1,200 people worldwide as of 2018, most of whom are based in the company's manufacturing plants in the Canton of Geneva and Vallée de Joux in Switzerland.
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In horology, a complication is any feature of a timepiece beyond the display of hours, minutes and seconds. A timepiece indicating only hours, minutes and seconds is known as a simple movement. Common complications include date or day-of-the-week indicators, alarms, chronographs (stopwatches), and automatic winding mechanisms. Complications may be found in any clock, but they are most notable in mechanical watches where the small size makes them difficult to design and assemble. A typical date-display chronograph may have up to 250 parts, while a particularly complex watch may have a thousand or more parts. Watches with several complications are referred to as grandes complications.
Breguet is a Swiss-French luxury watch, clock and jewelry manufacturer founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775. Since 1999, it has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Swatch Group. Headquartered in L'Abbaye, Switzerland, Breguet is one of the oldest surviving watchmaking brands and a pioneer of numerous watchmaking technologies such as the tourbillon, which was invented by Abraham Breguet in 1801. Abraham Breguet also invented and produced the world's first self-winding watch in 1780, as well as the world's first wristwatch in 1810.
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Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre SA, or simply Jaeger-LeCoultre, is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer founded by Antoine LeCoultre in 1833 and is based in Le Sentier, Switzerland. Since 2000, the company has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss luxury group Richemont.
Manufacture d'horlogerie is a French language term of horology that has also been adopted in the English language as a loanword. In horology, the term is usually encountered in its abbreviated form manufacture. This term is used when describing a wrist watch movement or watchworks fabricator which makes all or most of the parts required for its products in its own production facilities, as opposed to simply assembling watches using parts purchased from other firms.
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Universal Genève SA is a Swiss luxury watch company, founded in 1894 as Universal Watch. Since its beginnings, the company has produced complete watches with in-house movements, and throughout the 20th century, distributed many notable and important timepieces. Along with neighboring Geneva companies Audemars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux, Patek Philippe and Rolex, Universal is internationally regarded for its style of craftsmanship and manufacture. In addition, the brand also makes historical claim for creating the first-ever chronographic wristwatch in 1917.
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The Tour de I'lle is a complicated wristwatch manufactured by the Swiss manufacturer Vacheron Constantin. It was released in 2005 in a limited edition of 7 pieces to commemorate the manufacturer's 250th anniversary.
The Breguet No. 160"The Grand Complication," more commonly known as the Marie-Antoinette or the Queen, is a case watch designed by Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, and was his 160th watch. It has been called 'a poem in clockwork'. The watch is thought to have been commissioned in 1783 by Swedish count Axel von Fersen the Younger the lover of the French Queen, Marie Antoinette. Work on the watch was begun in 1783 and completed in 1802.
The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication is one of the most complicated mechanical pocket watches ever created. The 18-karat gold watch has 24 complications and was assembled by Patek Philippe. It was named after banker Henry Graves Jr. who supposedly commissioned it out of his desire to outdo the Grande Complication pocketwatch of American automaker James Ward Packard. The two were both at the top of the watch collecting world, regularly commissioning innovative new timepieces.
Czapek & Cie. is a manufacturer of fine Swiss watches founded in 1845 in Geneva. It is most noted for its bespoke timepieces manufactured for the European nobility in the 19th century.
The Vacheron Constantin Reference 57260 is a single highly complicated mechanical pocket watch, featuring 57 complications. The watch was assembled by Vacheron Constantin and introduced in 2015. The company claims that it is the most complicated mechanical pocket watch ever created, followed up by Patek Philippe Calibre 89 assembled in 1989 and featuring 33 complications. The Reference 57260 took eight years to assemble. The watch has 2,826 parts and 31 hands, weighs 957 grams and spans 98 mm.
Seth Glanville Atwood was an American industrialist, community leader, and horological collector. He was the chairman and president of Atwood Vacuum Machine Company, one of the world's largest manufacturers of automobile body hardware, and a long-time leader of the Atwood family's business which involved in manufacturing, banking and hotel industries, with over 2,500 employees. In addition, Atwood was a director of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, and had served in the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago.
Philippe Dufour is a Swiss-born watchmaker from Le Sentier, Vallée de Joux. He is regarded as the greatest master of modern watchmaking, and his watches are referenced as among the best ever made. He finishes all of his watches himself by hand. In 1992, Dufour was the first watchmaker to put arguably the most complex of complications in a wristwatch, a Sonnerie. His other two models include Duality and Simplicity.
References
- ↑ Besler, Carol. "Sotheby's To Offer Patek Philippe Caliber 89: Will It Smash The $24 Million Record?". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
- ↑ "Hands-On: A Patek Philippe Caliber 89, For Sale At Christie's New York - HODINKEE". HODINKEE. Archived from the original on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
- ↑ Adams, Ariel (2014-11-12). "$24,000,000 Patek Philippe Supercomplication Pocket Watch Beats Its Own Record At Auction". forbes.com . Retrieved 2015-04-20.
- ↑ "The Yellow Gold Calibre 89 Patek Philippe". catalog.antiquorum.swiss. Archived from the original on 2018-11-24. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
- ↑ "Hands-On: A Patek Philippe Caliber 89, For Sale At Christie's New York - HODINKEE". HODINKEE. Archived from the original on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
- ↑ "Patek, Philippe, Genève. The white gold "Calibre 89"". catalog.antiquorum.swiss. Archived from the original on 2018-11-24. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
- ↑ "Patek Philippe Calibre 89 sold for $5 million". JCK. Archived from the original on 2018-11-23. Retrieved 2018-11-23.
- ↑ "Sotheby's Declines to Sell Patek Caliber 89: Bids Fail to Reach $6.5 Million". Forbes .
- ↑ "Vacheron Constantin reference 57260 - the most complicated watch". reference57260.vacheron-constantin.com. Retrieved 2018-11-30.
- ↑ "Hands-On: The Vacheron Constantin 57260, The Most Complicated Watch In The World (Exclusive Live Photos, Thoughts) - HODINKEE". HODINKEE. Retrieved 2018-11-30.