Independents

and collectors...

Dear fellow high horology fans,

I am only now just starting to dig into the huge amount of stuff I collected in half a day at Basel and two days in Geneva. I planned to announce this as soon as I got back, but real life got in the way.

Anyway, this VERY special offer is still good until the end of the month; check it out - a chance to get a classic complication, interpreted and made personally by one of the founders of the AHCI and a very highly regarded master watchmaker, Mr. Svend Andersen - click here for a PuristS' interview of Mr. Andersen

I have seen this watch in person, and it is very well done, and knowing that it is basically a craftsman made timepiece, with the name of the actual watchmaker on the dial itself, gives it special meaning and value.

And until the end of June, Mr. Andersen is offering a special collectors' subscription program that makes this a deal almost too good to pass up -

Click here
for details of this exciting offer or contact Mr. Andersen directly at

Svend Andersen
36, Quai du Seujet
CH-1201 Gen?ve
T?l. 022/ 732 43 74
Fax. 022/ 738 05 68

email (remove the spaces before and after the @ sign)
andersenweb @ andersen-geneve.ch

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1884, the watch that tells history

After the great success of the Christophorus Columbus Watch in 1992, Andersen Gen?ve is coming again with a new commemorative World Time Watch: the 1884 to the honour of Sir Sandford Fleming, the inventor of the "Universal Coordinated Time" and the orchestrator of the "First Meridian Conference" held in Washington in October 1884.

There Sir Sandford Fleming presented his project to the assembled representatives of 25 nations who agreed to introduce the 24 hour time zone division of the earth, this to avoid confusion in the establishment of time tables by the railway companies and date exactly the telegraph messages.

Today we have to be grateful to Sir Sandford Fleming and his vision. Could you imagine nowadays worldwide communication by phone, internet, television or air travel without this world time or "Universal Coordinated Time"?

In order to commemorate this event, which happened 120 years ago, Svend Andersen launches an edition of 120 exceptional wrist watches with a historical automatic movement as well as his ingenious very thin world time indicator and a dial tracing the historical points. The solid gold cases of 41.0 mm diameter, 9.0 mm thickness will be individually numbered from 1-50 in red gold, 51-100 in white gold and 101-120 in platinum.

The prices are:


Red gold (5N) 42 gr.: CHF 21'000.00
White gold 44 gr.: CHF 24'000.00
Platinum 56 gr.: CHF42'000.00

(the collectors' subscription price is MUCH lower...)

Each watch will be delivered with a luggage style leather box and a booklet in English, French, German and Spanish with the story of Sir Sandford Fleming and World Time written by Clark Blaise, the American author of the book "Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time".

A subscription to collectors is open until end of June 2004. Click for the exciting offer here

Delivery to the subscribers starts in October 2004. The watches will then also be available through our worldwide representatives.

The best looking world time watch IMHO. Can anyone tell me what base movement is used in this watch?

Louis Cottier style world time module.

Louis Cottier first implemented this world time display module back in the 1930's (?), and several top name brands have used this system, including Patek Philippe (the world record for highest price paid for a wrist watch is a platinum Patek world time using the Cottier system), Breguet (in their Hora Mundi) and Vacheron Constantin in a special edition for the Japanese market.

Mr. Andersen is quite open about both the base movement he uses and the world time display design and its history, something quite refreshing in the high mech watch world.

The size of the 1884 is quite nice - large enough to satisfy the preference for larger than 36mm cases these days, yet proportioned well enough, at 10mm, to still look elegant.

Quite a nice watch.

Regards,

TM

(nt)

I think this watchis truly stunning and the price is highly attractive for the quality of Mr. Andersen's work.

However, I do find one minor flaw.....Will Mr. Anderson make a custom dial? New York is not represented on the dial - Washington is in it's place. Having lived in both New York and Washington DC, NY takes it! How does one make a world time watch and not include the great New York on the dial is perplexing!

Any insight would be appreciated! Still a truly beautiful piece which has caught my eye!

kind regards,

asg

The watch commemorates the 1884 First Meridian Conference in Washington so it makes sense that Washington be included. However, he did not reply to my query why Houston represented the Central US time zone instead of Chicago. Houston?

As a New Yorker, I just wouldn't enjoy the watch, alas. It looks lovely.

Anchorage is misspelled. In fact, I have one of his original 1985 Communication models and Anchorage was misspelled on that model as well. IMO, no excuse at this level of execution.

...that the cities are simply written as is customary in that country. Hence Moscow written in russian, and Roma instead of Rome.

Hello everyone,

 

As more of an observer  rather than a contributor to many watch enthusiast web forums over the years I felt compelled to make my following observations.After searching around for information before buying this model, I too was somewhat concerned by the point being raised and although an old thread, had to post my tuppence worth.

I overcame the intial reaction to buying this model when on my investigations came upon numerous world time watches from their inception by Loius Cottier ? to the present day from various manufacturers, and found to my surprise the numerous different spellings on their respective dials / bezels. The biggest find being the Patek ref 1415 world timer in Platinum, that holds or did hold the record for the most ever paid for a wristwatch.

I do not know the exact reasons for this and perhaps an email to Mr Andersen would clear it up , but I believe the spellings could be in the language of the watchmaker who executed the work ? The Patek above has spellings such as Ceylan for Ceylon ( now sri lanka of course ), Moscou, Istamboul,Californie, Pekin , Porto rico, plus a couple of others the rest are as would be spelt in English ?Equally other makes again have differing place names

I do know that now I have an 1884  in my possesion, any unusual spellings( to me ) will not take away in the least the enjoyment I shall get from this fabulous looking watch. Regards to all.