Precision, the insatiable requirement
For certain watchmakers, a watch that displays a regular loss or gain of, say, four seconds each day is an excellent timekeeper with extreme precision. For others, this is simply not the case. From this simple observation, one can distinguish two watchmaking schools in their approach to this endless quest for precision. For the first group, it is first and foremost a question of perpetuating an ancestral tradition where research is essentially oriented around problems of friction and lubrication inside “motors” that suffer from the complication. For the others, the technological breakthroughs of recent years offer a wide scope for hope, notably in the use of new materials expected to solve a good number of the problems encountered up until today. Silicon is an example, but it is not the only one by far. Just think about the number of new alloys now used for this or that component in the latest state-of-the-art calibres.
Looking beyond this dichotomy, it is difficult to form an opinion about the results obtained by one or the other of these approaches. This is because watchmakers take care not to divulge the daily variations in the running of their timekeepers to the average person. If they are becoming less reticent in disclosing the origin of movements that do not come from their workshops, they are more circumspect with regard to precision. At the most, one can obtain some measurements of the regulating organ’s range. But when it comes to exact figures about their watch, explanations become vague and hardly convincing. Ultimately, the only useful indication comes from the certificates issued by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC), stipulating that the daily variations in the operations of mechanical watches to successfully pass their inspection must not exceed -4 to +6 seconds a day. But considering that certain companies claim a tolerance limit below one second per day, not having the proof of it is all the more frustrating… The debate is open ! ■
Christophe Roulet
