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Cartier breaks the sound barrier
History & Masterpieces

Cartier breaks the sound barrier

Tuesday, 03 January 2012
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal

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2 min read

Unsurprisingly, Cartier has again raised the bar for its 2012 launches. Outstanding among these new models are a Grande Complication Skeleton Pocket Watch and a Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Flying Tourbillon, Cartier’s first incursion into striking watches since upping its game. The pocket watch in particular sent a ripple of approval through the audience at the presentation.

"Something we really wanted to make"

“This pocket watch is something we really wanted to make,” confessed Carole Forestier, who heads fine watch movement development at Cartier. “The idea came from vintage Cartier watches which we reworked.” The result is a skeleton case, sculpted from a solid 400-gram block of gold, whose Roman numerals enclose the heart of the watch which is also skeletonised. The complications in this timepiece, assembled from 457 parts, are a tourbillon at 6 o’clock, a monopusher chronograph and a perpetual calendar. Chamfering, including the 300 reflex angles, takes a full three weeks. A further month is required to decorate the movement and an additional month for assembly. The cherry on the cake: the correctors run through the Roman numerals and are therefore invisible.

Bringing the poetic to the mechanical

“The Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater is the culmination of five years of research into horological acoustics.” Such a sober introduction couldn’t hide the glint in Carole Forestier’s eyes as she ran through the basic physics of sound. Clearly she had been saving the best for last. One of the most noticeable features of this minute repeater is to connect the gong to the plate and the plate to the case middle at four points, thereby ensuring greater synergy between case and movement and in turn better transmission of the sound vibrations. To ensure the regularity with which the hammers strike the gongs, Cartier has developed what it calls an inertia and friction governor. It can be viewed through an aperture in the openwork dial as an extension of the flying tourbillon escapement at 12 o’clock. This mechanism rotates to regulate the speed at which the strike-train unwinds and thereby ensure the regular sounding of the two notes as they are struck.

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