The Repeater: Degrees Of Complication

The Most Exclusive Watch In The World

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Remove the back of even the simplest mechanical timepiece and the mechanism you see inside looks impossibly complicated. This mechanism, known as the movement, is typically made up of 200 or more individual parts, most assembled manually in a workshop by someone with very steady hands. Here's a look at one of the complications that represent the height of the horological craft. Last week we covered the chronograph , now we move on to the repeater.Most watch complications were born out of necessity and perform a utilitarian function, like a chronograph . Others were dreamed up as expressions of watchmaking excellence, pure exquisite folly designed to bring a smile to a watch owner’s face, like a moon-phase complication. And some were created for function but live on as folly. Few complications exemplify this genre as well as the repeater.

Repeater watches chime the time on demand, providing a sonic element to a device that already appeals to the tactile and visual senses. What adds to the charm of repeaters is that they have never been very prevalent, owing to the complexity and expense of them. Therefore, they remain delightfully rare. When was the last time you heard a wristwatch chime? But when you think about it, wouldn’t our modern world be made quainter if more did?

Dark days

Imagine a time before electric lighting. Working hours were determined by the length of the day and candlelight made for tired eyes. Or imagine a dark theater, train car or nighttime stroll before the era of luminescent watch dials and hands or bright mobile-phone displays. It was out of this milieu that the chiming pocket watch, or repeater, was created so a man could check the time in the absence of light. Of course, by its nature, the repeater also provided a time reference for the visually impaired.

The repeater really grew out of the striking clock that had been around since the 10th or 11th century, the most famous example being London’s iconic Big Ben, which can be heard for miles, thanks to the large bells. Of course, moving the chiming mechanism into a pocket watch wasn’t accomplished until right around 1700.

At first, repeater watches only chimed the most recent hour that was passed. So, whether the time is 9:00 or 9:47, an hour repeater will still chime nine times with a single tone. As watchmakers got more sophisticated, repeaters got more precise. Soon, there was any number of repeater configurations, from quarter repeaters, which chimed the hours and the quarter hours, to five-minute repeaters, which would chime the hour followed by the number of five-minute intervals after the hour in two different tones. The most precise repeater is, of course, the minute repeater, with which you can tell the exact time of day down to the minute.

Keep in mind that repeaters are not alarms nor do they chime regularly. They operate on demand, only when the wearer wants to check the time. Think of it like the backlight button on a digital Timex, but instead of pushing to light up the dial to see the time, you’d slide a switch to activate the chimes.

Please silence your repeaters

While repeaters were certainly a great leap forward and a practical complication, they were also a nuisance in some situations. Their usefulness in the dark led to an annoying diversion for bored husbands at opera houses. Just like cell phones in today’s movie theaters, the chiming of minute repeaters during opera performances neared epidemic proportions. In the famous Semper Opera House in Dresden, Germany, the frustrated owners finally thought of an innovative solution to the problem. If people wanted to check the time, why not put a large clock directly over the stage? So they commissioned a clock from the renowned Glashutte watchmaker (and mentor to a young Ferdinand Lange) Gutkaes, and the problem was solved and repeaters silenced.

How do they make a clock-tower bell to fit in a watch? That's next...