First automatic chronograph: El Primero. Or not!?

[_brian_]

I was just checking some watch-sites on the net, when there was a short article about the development of the first automatic chronograph ever. A huge amount of money was invested by several watch companies in Switzerland and till now I always heard about Zenith as the first watchmaker with an automatic chronograph movement. They are still using the name "El Primero" for some of their watches.

However there was a Seiko Patent in early

[alt.watch.obsessive]

I was under the impression Heuer's Cal 11 beat Zenith.

[POTR]

Actually.... Graham built the first stop watch (1720), which get's him the title "Father of the Chronograph", but the first real chronograph was built by Rieussec (1822).

The first rattrapante (split seconds) was built by Winnerl (1831), Nicole built the first resettable (back to 0) chronograph in 1862.

LEMANIA built the first automatic chronograph in 1947, and if you look at vintage watches much, you'll know you will find their ebauche in just about everyone else's stuff during this period of time... BUT, chronographs were on decline after the war, so no one picked up on it, and therefore Lemania never did mass production on this movement.

The first mass produced automatic chronograph was therefore Zenith's released on January 10, 1969. Of course, my preferred, as it uses traditional column wheel.

The second mass produced automatic chronograph was the Chronomatic Caliber 11 from a conglomerate of famous companies (Dubois-D

[_brian_]

I was under the impression Heuer's Cal 11 beat Zenith.

As far as I know that Cal 11 was the result of the Tag, Breitling and Hamilton "joint venture" and Tag used the movement in the Autavia, Carrera and Monaco lines, Breitling created the Chronomat series. However the Zenith movement was presented before the Cal 11. ("the first automatic integrated chronograph movement, capable of measuring short time intervals to a tenth of a second" - it

[_brian_]

Actually.... Graham built the first stop watch (1720), which get's him the title "Father of the Chronograph", but the first real chronograph was built by Rieussec (1822).

The first rattrapante (split seconds) was built by Winnerl (1831), Nicole built the first resettable (back to 0) chronograph in 1862.

LEMANIA built the first automatic chronograph in 1947, and if you look at vintage watches much, you'll know you will find their ebauche in just about everyone else's stuff during this period of time... BUT, chronographs were on decline after the war, so no one picked up on it, and therefore Lemania never did mass production on this movement.

The first mass produced automatic chronograph was therefore Zenith's released on January 10, 1969. Of course, my preferred, as it uses traditional column wheel.

The second mass produced automatic chronograph was the Chronomatic Caliber 11 from a conglomerate of famous companies (Dubois-D

[freddy333]

For those of you who were not aware, this is the subject of a feature article in the current (May 08) issue of International Watch (IW) magazine.