Horological Meandering

rdenney
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Variations on the AS1687/1688...

include members of the Communaute de Precision Horlogere, formed in 1957 at the promotion of Charles Blum of Ebel. They worked together with A. Schild to develop a 5-Hz version of those ebauches (also, I believe, an automatic winder for it). Gerard-Perregaux was a member, and their versions of that AS caliber (GP32, 42, etc) famously came in 5-Hz versions, both handwind and auto. Those were mentioned upthread.

But that high-beat ebauche was used by others. Zodiac's well-known calibers 86 and 88 were high-beat AS1687 and 1688, respectively (the 1688 had day and date). These were not just used in the Astrographic.





Favre-Leuba, a member of that coalition, used it as their 1164. Eberhard used it as the 257 (I think that's the number).



(Pic from an old EBay ad--I wish I owned this watch)

Doxa called it the 72. Ebel used it as the 215, though I have never seen an example. The one I have seen is an Ebel FastBeat, which used an ETA movement that I do not now recall.

The Ebel Chronograph used the Zenith El Primero, but to correct the above, Ebel called it the 134 (136 with a perpetual calendar module). The 134 was a Zenith 3019PHC in the first three years when they were working from old stock, a 40.0 (Zenith's transitional caliber as they restarted production), and in later years the 400. They used it from 1982 until 1994 (and later for the perpetual calendar models). All of these were 5-Hz (unlike those used by Rolex), but Ebel never really trumpeted that feature.




--Rick