Chronoswiss Chronoscope

[dlgates]

(These are old photo reviews rescued from the original RWG site; I didn't want them to get lost forever! Old hands will already have seen them; some newbies might be interested.-- Dave)

Chronoswiss Chronoscope

Received from trustywatchguy (Andrew07) 11 July 2005

SS; diameter 41mm;

Price of original: $3,800 in stainless steel, $17,360 in platinum

From the orolus site, referring to Mr. Lang:

In his most recent unveiling—the Chronoscope—Lang pays homage to the pioneering achievements of 19th-century watchmakers who dedicated themselves to developing split-second timing. For this first chronograph with regulator dial, Chronoswiss has reworked the plate of the movement in order to mount the switching mechanism at the front. The three chronograph functions (start, stop and return to zero) are triggered via a pushpiece that is integrated into the winding crown rather than by separate pushers.

To create this system, 38 components were specially made. The self-winding movement enables the Chronoscope to measure intervals of time to a sixth-of-a-second accuracy.

Here are side by side pictures of the original watch and a similarly sized image of the replica:

What immediately attracted me to this replica was not only its rarity but the extremely close accuracy of the rendering of the dial. It is unfortunate that I had to use long exposures to achieve the necessary depth of field (except the wrist shots) so that the second hands are blurred, making it more difficulty to point out similarities and differences. Unfortunately it was not pointed out that the watch lacks any hacking mechanism. The main thing is that the original is a combination régulateur and chronograph. Thus on the original, the subdial at 12 o'clock is actually the hours hand. On the replica, the corresponding subdial is very accurately marked but in fact functions as a 24-hour (military) time indicator--double the value to interpret. Thus if the hour hand on the main dial (which doesn't exist on the original) points to eight in the PM, the hand on the 12 o'clock subdial will point to 10 but will represent 20:00 hours.

What is a sweep second hand on the replica is, of course, the stopwatch seconds counter on the original. Notice also that the crown on the original contains the pusher for the chrono function, whereas the crown on the replica has a protrusion but not enough to resemble a true pusher. The 6 o'clock subdial on the replica is running seconds. Unfortunately the redundancy of both the central sweep hand and the 6 o'clock subdial is marred by the fact that on the copy I received, at least, they were not synchronized, so the central sweep indicates about 20 seconds later than the seconds hand on the subdial--a rather sloppy situation when you consider it would have been easy at the factory to place the hands so they moved properly together.

The blackness of the markers on both the main dial and the 6 o'clock subdial are obviously darker on the replica, but otherwise the face itself is extremely accurate. One positive thing to say is that the white porcelain finish of the face itself is very, very nice and certainly represents the original well.

Here are the usual pictures:

Here is where one wonders about the quality of the case. Without evidence to the contrary, I can only assume that the original, being offered both in SS and in platinum, is probably well polished. You can see that the outside of the case on the replica is brushed, but somewhat roughly so, and I seriously suspect this may be plated brass. In fact, the crown already has a slightly brassy cast to it. The typical beading around both top and bottom of Chronoswiss cases, however, looks good.

As I said at the beginning, this was a watch impossible to resist simply because of its rarity (so far) and the beauty of the largely very accurate face. The strap, however, is of typical mediocre rep quality, the deployant is somewhat difficult to snap into its closed position, and the quality of the case itself is less than perfect. It is a watch that I would recommend those liking Chronoswiss to be on the look-out for--but in a higher overall quality level. That said, on the wrist it looks damned good (or would if provided a good strap, preferably black gator).

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THE END

Thanks for looking!