Five years, full
Extended from two to five years on every mechanical watch, registered to the certificate number rather than to the receipt.
Chapter 00 · Under the loupe
Nothing in here has been simplified.
A Swiss manufacture, 1848. Two hundred and seventy parts, no battery, and one small wheel that has to be right about the second — forever. Most watch sites show you the outside. Start at the escapement instead.
1848Founded
0Beats / hour
0METAS tests
0Gauss resisted
Scroll — the calibre follows
Chapter 01 · The Co-Axial, 1999
Three levels. One impulse.
A Swiss lever escapement pushes its teeth sideways across the pallet stones. Sliding friction, and friction needs oil, and oil ages. George Daniels' co-axial answer splits the job across three wheels on one axis so the impulse arrives almost radially — a push, not a scrape.
The balance runs at 3.5 Hz. That is 25,200 vibrations an hour, 8 a second, which is exactly why the seconds hand moves in eighths instead of ticking. Wind it and watch: the amplitude climbs to 320° and stays there.
Escape train · real ratiost = teeth
| Barrel | mainspring, 1 turn ≈ 7.5 h | 80 t |
|---|---|---|
| Centre wheel | carries the minute hand | 64 t / 12 p |
| Third wheel | intermediate | 60 t / 10 p |
| Fourth wheel | carries the seconds hand | 56 t / 8 p |
| Escape wheel | co-axial, two-level | 15 t |
| Balance | free-sprung, silicon spring | 3.5 Hz |
Chapter 02 · Master Chronometer
Eight tests. Nowhere to hide.
Anyone can certify a bare movement on a bench. The Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology — METAS — tests the finished, cased watch, strap and all, across eight protocols including two full magnetic exposures at 15,000 gauss. Every single watch, not a sample.
The tolerance is 0 / +5 seconds a day. Not ±5. It may run up to five seconds fast and it may not run slow — because a watch that gains is a watch you can trust to be early.
Read the certificateMETAS · protocol 8per watch
| Test | Condition | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Rate, cased | 6 positions | 0 / +5 s/d |
| Rate, magnetised | during exposure | 15,000 G |
| Rate, after exposure | demagnetised | 0 / +5 s/d |
| Deviation | 100 % → 33 % reserve | ≤ 5 s/d |
| Deviation | 23 °C / 33 °C | ≤ 5 s/d |
| Power reserve | full wind, run-down | 55 h |
| Water resistance | overpressure | to 600 m |
| Functions | every complication | pass |
Hover a component in the calibre to read what it does. Certificate numbers are issued per watch and stay queryable for the life of the piece.
Chapter 03 · Anti-magnetic
Fifteen thousand gauss.
A fridge magnet is about 50 gauss and it will stop a conventional watch dead — a steel balance spring magnetises, its coils stick together, and the watch gains minutes an hour. The industry's answer for a century was a soft-iron cage: heavy, and it kills the display back.
The other answer is to make the vulnerable parts non-ferrous in the first place — a silicon balance spring, a non-magnetic escapement, amagnetic alloys throughout. Nothing to shield, because nothing responds.
0Gauss, certified
0Fridge magnet
0Soft-iron cage
Drag anywhere · the filings follow your field · the balance spring does not · 0 G
Chapter 04 · Four registers
Turn the bezel. Choose a life.
Register 1 / 4
Seamaster
Calibre 8800 · Co-Axial Master Chronometer
Water, and the arithmetic of it.
SpecificationDiver
Chapter 05 · Flight-qualified 1965
21 · 07 · 1969
NASA bought a handful of chronographs off a shop counter in Houston and destroyed them on purpose: 71 °C for 48 hours, then −18 °C, vacuum, 40 g shock on six axes, 130 dB of vibration, 93 % humidity, pure oxygen.
One survived running. It went to the lunar surface on a wrist over an EVA suit, manually wound, no battery, no electronics — because on the Moon a mechanical watch is the redundancy for the mission clock. It is still a 42 mm hand-wound chronograph today, and the movement is still visible through the back.
0High-temp soak
0Shock, 6 axes
0Case, unchanged
0Hand-wound reserve
Chapter 06 · 300 m / 600 m
Under pressure
Saturation divers breathe helium, and a helium atom is small enough to migrate through the gasket into the case. On the way back up the pressure inverts and the crystal is pushed off from the inside. So a professional diver gets a helium escape valve at 10 o'clock — a one-way vent for the gas you never invited.
Everything else is arithmetic: a unidirectional bezel that can only under-read your remaining air, a lume that still reads at 600 m where no sunlight arrives, and a case tested at 25 % over its rated depth before it is allowed a certificate.
Depth ladder0 m
| Recreational limit | air, no deco | 40 m |
|---|---|---|
| Diver 300 M | HEV, unidirectional bezel | 300 m |
| Planet Ocean 600 M | HEV, ceramic bezel | 600 m |
| Test overpressure | +25 % of rating | 750 m |
Chapter 08 · After the purchase
The second hundred years.
A mechanical watch is the only thing you will buy this decade that is designed to be repaired indefinitely. Here is what that actually commits us to.
Eight to ten years
The interval, not a deadline — the co-axial escapement's near-radial impulse is what lets the lubricant last that long. Full disassembly, ultrasonic clean, re-regulation, pressure test.
Try it on a wrist
Case diameter tells you almost nothing about how a watch wears. Lug-to-lug and case thickness tell you everything. Book twenty minutes and a loupe.
Request the specimen
A printed technical plate: exploded calibre, full train ratios, tolerances and finishing notes for the reference you're considering. Posted, not emailed.