#Zenith primero free#

689, which moves the small seconds subdial to the traditional location of 6:00 on the dial. Perhaps the most unusual member of the family is Cal. These complications would appear in various combinations with date and moon phase for 25 years. A popular complication was a central 24 hour hand adjusted using a simple pushbutton at 10:00 on the case. 661, and models with a fan-shaped power reserve indicator between 1 and 2 on the dial. The small seconds movements were much more prominent in the Elite range, and far more varieties were produced.Įarly variations on the Elite included the hand-winding Cal. 670, with central seconds, but this never seemed to be the focus. Zenith also offered a similar movement, Cal. Perhaps this was to add interest and a feeling of complexity to the watches that used the new Cal. Stranger still was the location of this subdial: 9:00 on the dial. It measured just 11.5 ligne (25.60 mm) diameter and 3.28 mm thick, making it even slimmer than the similar ETA 2892.Īt a time when subdial “small seconds” were seen as old-fashioned, Zenith designed this into Elite movement. The Glucydur balance ticked 28,800 times per hour but the design was efficient enough to run for over 50 hours from a single mainspring barrel. It was thoroughly up to date, with modern features including hacking seconds, instant date change, and a ball bearing rotor. The resulting Zenith Elite movement would prove to be an excellent all-around performer. The company was using computer-aided design (CAD) technology for the first time, and reportedly brought in help from consulting company Conseilray. It would be a relatively small and thin automatic movement with specifications similar to ETA’s leading Cal.

Zenith technical director Jean-Pierre Gerber lead a team to create a design of their own. IWC and ETA were showing what could be accomplished by layering a module on top of a reliable base, and every manufacturer was scrambling to secure such a movement. In 1991, the Swiss watch industry was finding its way out of the quartz crisis, with complicated automatic movements leading the charge. But a company can’t rely on a single movement for all of its sales, especially a complex and expensive one. And for good reason: Not only is it historic, it’s also got a fun survival story and is a great movement to boot. Mention Zenith to a watch enthusiast and they’ll likely start talking about the famous high-beat automatic chronograph known as El Primero. I remember vividly the first time I saw a collection of the almost unbelievably ingenious and imaginative complicated watches, with things like striking jacks and mechanisms that could duplicate the appearance of waterfalls, in the Musée d'Horlogerie du Locle, at Neuchâtel – these were not exercises in improved functionality or precision, but mechanical entertainments.Zenith used this illustration for the launch of Cal.

#Zenith primero free#

Prior to that the watch was certainly expected to be as accurate as the watchmaker could make it (and improvements in precision were always actively pursued, even as long ago as the first watches, in the 15th century) but the fact that the precision we now take for granted, was difficult, if not impossible to achieve, meant that watchmakers were free to make watches that were as much whimsical entertainments, as a useful means of regulating every day life. Genuine precision timekeeping in a watch started to really take off in the early 19th century and had become, by the 20th, a more and more exact science. Nowadays, in mechanical horology the question is more complicated than it used to be. A basic tenet of watchmaking innovations is that at their best, they offer some genuine improvement in functionality.