G. Wall & Cia. | Quarter and hour repeater | Tempered steel | 1910
Series: GRAND COMPLICATIONS
By: Sílvio Pereira
Technical data
- Pocket watch, Lépine type. With hour and quarter repeater. Dated 1910.
- Functions: hours, minutes, seconds, hour and quarter repeater.
- Serial number: 40942
- Manufacture: G. Wahl & Cia.
- Model: Prima Dona
- Country: Switzerland
- Calibre: radiating-bridge layout. No. 13803
- Movement protection: glass.
- Escapement type: Swiss lever.
- Temperature-compensated bimetallic balance with Breguet hairspring.
- Power reserve: 36 hours
- Frequency: 18,000 A/h
- Jewels: 15
- Case material: tempered steel
- Dial: enamel
- Small seconds at 6 o'clock.
- Case diameter: 52.8 mm
- Thickness: 18.6 mm
- Weight: 99.92 g
- Mainspring wound by the crown at 12 o'clock
- Hands: pear-shaped for the hours and sabre-shaped for the minutes. Set by the crown, with the stem released by a pin at 1 o'clock.
- Numerals: Roman for the hours. Indexes for the minutes. Seconds: Arabic for the ten-second intervals and indexes for the rest.
- Repeater function: operated by a slide pushed upwards, set in the case between 7 and 9 o'clock
- Glass: in excellent condition.
- Case number: 40942
Overall assessment - A watch with one of the most difficult complications to produce, in immaculate condition.
Vacheron & Constantin | Quarter and hour repeater | Gold | 1832
Meuron & Cia. | Jacquemart automata | Hour and quarter repeater | Gold | 1810
Anonymous | Grand complication | Hour and quarter repeater | Gold | 1910
The history of repeating watches
A repeater is a complication in a mechanical watch or clock that sounds the hours, and often the minutes, at the press of a button. There are many types of repeater, from the simple repeater that strikes only the hours to the minute repeater, which gives the time to the minute, using separate tones for hours, quarter hours and minutes. They appeared before widespread artificial lighting, to let their owners tell the time in the dark, and were also used by the blind. Today they are valued mostly as expensive pieces by watch lovers. Repeaters should not be confused with alarm clocks, which do not tell the time on demand but only at regular intervals.
First alarm clock, created by Pierre de Fobis of Provence in 1540
History
The repeating clock was invented by the English clergyman and inventor, the Reverend Edward Barlow (1639-1719), in 1676.
Reverend Edward Barlow (1639-1719)
His innovation was the rack and snail striking mechanism, which made it possible to build repeating clocks that, at the pull of a cord, would strike the number of hours; it could easily be made to repeat and has been the standard mechanism used in clock and watch repeaters ever since.
Drawing of the rack and snail striking mechanism created by Edward Barlow
The best repeating clocks were expensive and difficult to make. A set of wheels had to be added to the striking mechanism, along with a cord, so as to strike the hours and quarters, or even the hours and five-minute divisions (five-minute repeating). During the 19th century such clocks gradually fell out of use. Because of cheap imports from France, Germany and America, English watch and clockmaking went into decline, and with the advent of gas lighting repeating clocks became an unnecessary luxury.
Both Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare claimed the invention of the repeating watch, shortly before 1700. Both applied for a patent on it, which was decided in Quare's favour in 1687.
Daniel Quare (1648-1724)
Repeating pocket watches were much harder to make than repeating table clocks. Fitting the bells, the wire gongs and the complicated striking work into a pocket movement was a feat of fine watchmaking. Repeating pocket watches were therefore expensive luxuries and status symbols; as such, they survived the introduction of artificial lighting, and some are still made today.
While the repeating watches made in the 18th century were fitted with a kind of bell mounted in the back of the case, which gave a bell-like sound when struck by a sort of hammer,
Example with a sounding bell
these were replaced by wire gongs in the 19th century, since they took up less space. These seem to have been invented by the Swiss around 1800.
A typical example in which the repeating is done by hammers striking wire gongs.
Repeating watches generally strike the hours and quarters, although the best London watchmakers made repeating mechanisms in the 18th century using the Stockten system, named after the original inventor Matthew Stockten (also known as Stockton, Stockdon or Stogden), who worked for the famous makers Daniel Quare and George Graham.
These were made to strike the hours, quarters and half quarters (7½ minutes). From about 1750 these watches were modified to repeat the hours, quarters and minutes (the minute repeater); the famous London maker John Ellicott seems to have been the first to produce them.
John Ellicott 1706-1772
During the 19th century, after the improvements made by A.L. Breguet, the minute-repeating mechanism became much more common, yet it is still found only in the finest watches, since it was, and remains, expensive to make.
How they work
The rack and snail striking mechanism used in early repeaters often had a cord with a button on the end that came out of the clock. Pulling the cord set the repeater mechanism going. These clocks were called "pull repeaters". Repeating pocket watches have a button at the top, in the pendant, to activate them.
The repeating mechanisms of early watches were operated by pushing the pendant (at the top) of the watch. Later they were activated by pushing a slide along the left-hand side of the case. This action winds a separate spring that drives the repeater. Releasing the slide releases the spring and, as it unwinds, it moves the repeater mechanism through its chiming sequence.
One problem with the first repeaters was that the slide could be released before it was fully cocked, so that the repeater sounded only part of its sequence. Around 1820 the French watchmaker Abraham Breguet invented a reliable "all-or-nothing" mechanism that prevented precisely this, making repeating watches considerably more reliable and popular. The first repeaters had a single bell mounted inside the case back, on which two hammers would strike. This bell was made of bronze, a mixture of copper and tin. Later repeating watches came to use gongs made of long hardened steel wires coiled inside the watch case. Small hammers driven by the repeater mechanism strike them to make them sound. Some of the complex repeaters, such as the minute repeater, need to produce three different sounds to distinguish hours, quarter hours and minutes. Since it is difficult to fit three bulky steel gongs into a watch movement, practically all repeaters use two gongs, made from the two ends of the wires, and a third sound is made by striking the two gongs in quick succession, first the high tone and then the low: "ding-dong".
Repeaters have a mechanism that allows the tempo of the strikes to be changed. The owner of a repeating watch can ask a watchmaker to alter the tempo, making it faster or slower. According to the book "Etablissage et Repassage des Montres à Répétition" by John Huguenin (page 39 of the original edition), "a minute repeater running at average speed takes about twenty seconds to strike 12 hours, three quarters and fourteen minutes".
Types of repeater
Quarter repeater
The repeater strikes the number of hours and then the number of quarters immediately after the last hour stroke. The mechanism uses 2 bells of different tones. The low tone usually signals the hours and the high tone the quarter hours. For example, if the time is 2:45, the quarter repeater sounds 2 low tones and, after a short pause, 3 high ones: "dong, dong, ding, ding, ding, ding". Alternatively, some use a pair of tones to distinguish the quarter hours: "dong, dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong"
Half-quarter repeater
The half-quarter repeater can sound the time to half a quarter of an hour, that is, 7½ minutes. It strikes the hours and then the quarter hours. Like the quarter repeater, it uses a single tone to signal that more than half of the current quarter hour has already passed. For example, if the time is 3:41 the mechanism will strike 3 low tones ("dong") to represent 3 hours, then 2 double tones ("ding-dong") to represent 2 quarter hours, then one high tone ("ding") to indicate that more than half of the third quarter hour has already passed.
Five-minute repeater
First built in 1710 by Samuel Watson, the five-minute repeater strikes the hours and then the number of five-minute periods after the last hour stroke. The mechanism uses a low tone for the hours and a high tone for the minutes. For example, 2:25 would be struck as: "dong, dong, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding".
Minute repeater
The minute repeater works like the quarter repeater, with the addition that, after the hours and quarter hours have sounded, the number of minutes since the last quarter hour is indicated. This requires three different sounds to distinguish hours, quarters and minutes. Often the hours are signalled by a low tone, the quarters by a sequence of two tones ("ding-dong") and the minutes by a high tone. For example, if the time is 2:49, the minute repeater will sound 2 low tones representing 2 hours, 3 double tones representing 45 minutes, and 4 high tones representing 4 minutes: "dong, dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding, ding, ding, ding".
Decimal repeater
The decimal repeater works like the minute repeater, but instead of sounding the quarter hours followed by the minutes, it strikes the number of ten-minute intervals after the last hour and then the minutes. For example, if the time is 2:49, the decimal repeater will sound 2 low tones representing 2 hours, 4 double tones representing 40 minutes, and 9 high tones representing 9 minutes: "dong, dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding". These repeaters, although first made more than 250 years ago, are very rare.
Grande and petite sonnerie
Grande sonnerie (French, meaning "grand strike") is a quarter (or minute) striking mechanism combined with a repeater. At every quarter hour it strikes the hours and the quarters past the hour. Depending on the design of the sonnerie, either the hours or the quarters may be heard first. The striking is usually done on two or more gongs (with two or more hammers); the quarter gongs may be a simple combination of high and low notes, or elaborate melodies such as the Westminster chimes.
François Paul Journe - Grande and Petite Sonnerie
A grande sonnerie behaves like a repeating watch that is triggered at the quarters (working in the same way as a minute or quarter repeater would if it were operated by hand by the user at that same moment) and would have its own power source (often a second barrel). This also means that grandes sonneries often sound the hours first and then the quarters, like most repeaters, and will have a way of activating the repeater on demand. It is more complex than the petite sonnerie, which is not built around a repeating mechanism and will strike the hours and the quarters without any repeater function. In some cases it can strike the hours at the press of a button.
Modern sonnerie watches blend the two types of sonnerie, creating selectable modes of "grande and petite sonnerie" that the user can choose between, as well as having an optional minute or quarter repeater. These watches will have a distinctive twin-barrel configuration, one turning clockwise and the other anticlockwise, or will use a single barrel for timekeeping and chiming.
The sonnerie is implemented differently in clocks. At each quarter hour it audibly strikes the number of quarter hours on one gong, and the number of hours since the last hour on a second gong. For example, on a three-weight Vienna regulator wall clock, at 6:15 it would sound once on a high-pitched gong and then six times on a low-pitched gong. At 6:30 it would sound twice on the high gong, then six times on the low gong. At 6:45, three times on the high gong, then six times on the low gong, and at 7:00 it would sound four times on the high gong, then seven times on the high gong. The exact time every fifteen minutes can always be known by listening to the strikes. These types of movement are found mainly in French carriage clocks or German three-weight Vienna regulators. In addition, they can strike the quarters and hours on demand, by activating a repeating mechanism at the press of a button. The term is sometimes wrongly used for a mere quarter-repeating mechanism.
Vibration repeater
Used by the visually impaired and for telling the time silently in meetings and concerts, vibration repeating watches do not sound audibly but produce vibrations. Instead of a gong, the hammer struck the hours on a solid block of metal fixed to the case, producing a dull thud that could be felt in the hand.
Audocron
A student at the Ecole Technique de la Vallée de Joux created a mechanical ten-minute repeater in the 1930s. Conceived as a watch for the blind – before talking clocks – and patented (3,925,777) in 1974, this electronic repeater called the Audocron was made in the USA, followed by the minutes in the original tone. There was a gap of 1½ seconds between the groups. Around 18,000 of these watches were made in the USA and sold all over the world.
Audocron patented in 1974
Comments