Horological Meandering

Les Ateliers Louis Moinet introduce their new Jules Verne watches

 

The brand Louis Moinet was started by Jean-Marie Schaller together with his wife in 2001.   Schaller has a long experience in the Swiss watchmaking industry having worked on the introduction or reintroduction of several now well know brands. 

Louis Moinet  (1768-1853) was a leading clock and watchmaker in Paris, President of the Chronometric Society of Paris and also worked closely with Abraham-Louis Breguet.  His clocks were owned by many famous people of the epoch including European monarchs, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe who purchased one for the White House in Washington DC where it still stands today.  Today's Louis Moinet watches are made in small series of 60 pieces or less.  Special attention is given to the case design.  The  movements are customised from Swiss industrial production.

The entryway to the Espace Jules Verne at the Maison d'Alleurs (English translation  "House of Elsewhere") is a curved walkway over the street separating the Espace Jules Verne from the rest of the museum. 

The Maison d'Ailleurs, Museum of science fiction, utopia and extraordinary journeys is the only public institution of its kind in Europe.   Its collection includes more than 50'000 books and 20'000 other documents and items related to science fiction. 

It appears that this evening the event to be at is the Louis Moinet presentation, across the street the entrance to the cellar theatre in the château d'Yverdon is empty.

The Espace Jules Verne includes a collection of over 20'000 books and items relating to Jules Verne that were collected by Mr. J.-M. Margot and donated to the Maison  d'Ailleurs in 2003.

We were first greeted by the curator of the Maison d'Ailleurs, Mr. P. Gyger, who presented a short talk about the museum and Jules Verne. 

Mr. J.-M. Schaller the CEO of Louis Moinet then took over and presented some of the history of the French watch and clockmaker Louis Moinet, the connection of the brand with Jules Verne and finally the new watches the Jules Verne Instrument I and  Instrument II.

The "Vernoscope" is a presentation stand for the 4 new watches in "Vernian style".

Some watches from the Louis Moinet collection, from the left:
The Louis Moinet Vertalis Tourbillon, the Tempograph and the Twintech.
(see below for better pictures)


After the presentation everyone in attendance was able to take a closer look at the 
watches and enjoy a nice aperitif.

The Louis Moinet Jules Verne Instrument II flyback chronograph in the background.  In the foreground the Jules Verne Instrument I chrono with second timezone.

Jules Verne Instrument II flyback chronograph

A couple of daysafter this presentation I was able to visit the shop of Louis Moinet in Ste.-Blaise, a  village on the north shore of Lake Neuchâtel just east of the town of Neuchâtel.   The Louis Moinet shop is in the center of the village right next to the church.  Some village buildings reflected in the window of the Louis Moinet shop.  Note the lily logo of Louis Moinet.  The lily was at the time a symbol of the French monarchy and now of France.  A fitting symbol for a watch brand named after the Parisian watchmaker Louis Moinet.

The church of Ste.-Blaise.

Note the lily motives on the steeple.

Following, some clocks made by Louis Moinet in the collection of Les Ateliers Louis Moinet  (the full name of the brand; The Louis Moinet Shops)

Now we get to the watches.

The Vertalis Tourbillon, limited edition of 12 pieces.  Note the typical Louis Moinet decorative element on the dial.  You 
will see this "radiating flames" element which Louis Moinet has named the "côtes du Jura" often on their watches.  The movement is supplied by Concepto SA in La Chaux-de-Fonds, one of the new companies formed in the wake of the Jaquet scandal that has recovered the old Jaquet savoir-faire with many ex-Jaquet employees.

A watch for fans of seeing movement on the dial, the Tempograph has a 10 second retrograde  display on the right side of the dial.  On the left we can see the mechanism with the 6-lobed cam driving this display.  The base movement is a Soprod A10 with a specific module for Louis Moinet.

The Twintech with a double barrel movement in a rectangular steel cased watch has the date and power reserve on retrograde displays.  The balance can be seen through a decorative grill reminiscent of such pieces on old cylinder escapement movements.

Now we come to the Jules Verne chronographs.  The two watches in my pictures are both Jules Verne Instrument II's, chronograph ratrapantes.  The Jules Verne Instrument I of which only the poor picture from the presentation is a chrono with second time zone.

The porthole on the left protects a small piece of stone from the moon, a lunar asteroid, which is incorporated in the case.

The case including the push-button mechanism is made of 18k gold, grade 5 titanium and stainless steel 316L.

The Nr1 of each of these series of watchs has a hand engraved "crator" rotor.

To use the chrono function the two "horns" are folded out to the right forming large comfortable operating levers.  The levers are folded back along the bezel the chrono function is not needed.

This is again one of those cases where the "real world" and the world of pictures are not congruent.  In "real" I much preferred the version with the dark blue dial where I thought the contrasts with the red gold details were very handsome.  Looking at the pictures here I much prefer the white dial.  Figure it out.

I will be returning to see more from Louis Moinet in the future.
I hope you have enjoyed this report.
Don


This message has been edited by DonCorson on 2010-02-18 10:31:01