The Introduction
The History
The Challenges
The complicated Complications
The Interview with Paul Gerber
The World's Most Complicated Wristwatch
A Century-Spanning Excercise in Miniaturisation, Craftsmanship and Human Imagination
By Magnus Bosse and John Davis
© 6-30-2003
1. Introduction
"... As we celebrate mediocrity..." This phrase from Tom Petty's recent song "The Last
DJ" " expresses well what I feel about the underlying sentiment in today's society. Everything is done to
fulfill minimal requirements. Think of the service of your telephone company, your car garage, and your washing machine.
Smallest modifications are advertised as major break-throughs - and one barely recognises these tricks as our world is
increasingly complicated (a fact that makes such deceptions easy).
And our beloved universe of fine mechanical watches? This asylum for archaic ideas, skills and
craftsmanship? My hope when I entered this world was that I would find a clean and sober space, filled with creativity
and an upstanding work ethic . . . I realized soon enough that I was a neophyte thinking like that.
While the manufacturers like to use words like "haute horlogerie", it is often - too
often - marketing double talk. A new case here (of course bigger now), a new dial colour there. I always shake
my head each year at a certain booth at the Basel Watch & Jewellery show when I see crowds of people pressing
their noses on a window where the latest exciting developement of a well known watch manufacturer is presented: a
new dial variation! Very rarely a true innovation, and then often more market driven than originating from true
horological goals (in the sense of a company's guiding idea), are shown. I started to think that this is how
everything in the world may work.
Then, I discovered the backroads beneath the autobahns: small companies and independent creators
and artists; truly ingenious (and ingenuous), sprited, horological artists. Eager to talk to you about their philosophy
and ideas, happy to share their enthusiasm with others. I felt like I had found heaven! This is the other side of the
horological medallion, shining bright, but not blinding the viewers. And this is the side where many of the new
mechanisms come from, even if the "big shots" in the industry claim them for themselves.
Paul Gerber is one of this rare breed. A modest,
discrete man to talk to, but immensly enthusiastic
about his creations. He is a champion of miniaturization: using a
barely existent space, and putting there a complicated
mechanism despite the world telling him, "It can't be done!". He
fit an alarm function into the famous Valjoux
7750 automatic chronograph movement without altering its height, a
complication now produced by Fortis, and made the
world's smallest wooden clock. He has also created his own line
of wristwatches, introducing the first retrograde seconds
in a wristwatch, and later, a double rotor automatic module. Both
movements are build upon the ETA/Peseux 7001 handwound
movement.
Paul Gerber was the man who dared to make out of an already exceptional movement "the world's most
complicated wristwatch". This article invites you to follow the history of a fascinating microcosm of gears, levers
and springs, describing what can be accomplished if the driving concepts are art and excellence, and a non-compromise
strategy is followed. A story that sometimes meanders but eventually finds a light at the end of the tunnel, and a great
success at the end.
The Introduction
The History
The Challenges
The complicated Complications
The Interview with Paul Gerber
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