VH-19
Eleven and a half lignes, 27 jewels, 21 600 vibrations an hour, 62 hours from a single barrel wound by hand. Drawn here, cut here, finished here, and the only movement we will ever put in a case.
- Plate
- ⌀ 30.00 mm
- Thickness
- 4.35 mm
- Balance
- 10.00 mm, free-sprung
- Parts
- 142, of which 31 made here
One hundred and forty-two parts, by height
The same five layers as the home page, read the other way: here each row sits further in the further up the stack it lives, and carries the parts, the jewels and the tolerance we work the layer to.
- +9.80
Case back
Sapphire, 2.00 mm, bevelled 0.4 mm at 45°, bedded on a nitrile gasket and pressure-tested at 5 bar for ten minutes. The only layer a customer ever sees.
- Parts
- 1
- Tolerance
- ±0.02 mm
- +6.90
Escapement
Free-sprung balance at 10.00 mm with four timing weights; no index, so regulation is done by turning the weights a sixth of a flat at a time. Poising takes longer than everything above it combined.
- Parts
- 9
- Tolerance
- ±0.005 mm
- +4.35
Bridges
Four, German silver, anglage filed at 45° with an inward angle at every re-entrant corner. We will not black-polish a bridge that has to be re-cut afterwards — the order of work is fixed.
- Parts
- 4 + 6 screws
- Tolerance
- ±0.01 mm
- +2.60
Going train
Barrel 80, centre 64, third 60, fourth 56, escape 15. Pinions of eight and ten leaves, cut on the lathe at the window and burnished, never rolled.
- Parts
- 14
- Tolerance
- ±0.008 mm
- ±0.00
Mainplate
German silver, 30.00 mm, 1.20 mm thick, perlage laid in 1.6 mm circles from the centre outward. Nine jewel holes reamed before any finishing, because finishing moves metal.
- Parts
- 1
- Tolerance
- ±0.004 mm
Finishing is thirty-one hours. It is also the whole price difference.
Anglage on four bridges, perlage on the plate, snailing on the barrel, black polish on five steel parts. None of it makes the watch keep better time. All of it is what you are paying for, so we tell you how long it takes: 31 h 10 of the 58 h a VH-19 costs us.
Six positions, twice, and the sheet goes in the box.
Every watch runs ten days on the timing machine before it leaves: dial up, dial down, crown down, crown up, twelve up, six up — read at 24 hours and again at 240, when the mainspring has lost most of its torque.
- Greatest spread6.5 s/day
- Amplitude, dial up296° at 1 h, 272° at 24 h
- Worst positionCrown down, −3.1 s/day
- We reject atAny position outside ±4
The barrel decides everything else
We hold parts for thirty years.
Thirty-one of the 142 parts are made in this room, including the balance staff, the pallet fork and all four bridges. The rest come from four suppliers in the Jura, named on the sheet in your box.
- Made here31 parts, including the balance staff
- Bought inJewels, mainspring, hairspring, screws
- Stock held30 years from the last VH-19 delivered
