WatchTime - August 2012

WATCHtalk
Hoop
Dreams
How a child’s toy solved
Montblanc’s millisecond
challenge
If three watches constitute a trend, then
measuring milliseconds, or 1/1,000s of
a second, is a trend. Two watch
brands, each with high-speed horological
histories, have launched mechanical
chronographs claimed to be capable of
accurately measuring 1/1,000s of a second.
Last year, TAG Heuer debuted its
Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Concept
Chronograph, followed this year by the
even faster Mikrogirder. At SIHH this
year, Montblanc launched its own
millisecond-measuring marvel, the
TimeWriter II Chronograph Bi-
Fréquence 1000, which employs a unique
approach to splitting seconds.
In a sense, development of Montblanc’s
high-speed chronograph began in
1916. That’s when Minerva launched its
first 1/100s-of-a-second stopwatch. Acquired
by Richemont in 2006, Minerva
was a true manufacture, known for
chronographs and pilots’ watches. In
2007, Richemont decided that Minerva
would produce movements for Montblanc,
and the following year, Montblanc
launched the “Fondation Minerva” to
create the TimeWriter series, consisting of
extraordinary timepieces developed with
independent watchmakers. The first piece
in the series – Metamorphosis – was
launched in 2010. The newest piece, the
Bi-Fréquence 1000, is the latest
TimeWriter creation.
20 WatchTime August 2012
Because of Minerva’s long experience
producing high-speed chronographs,
Montblanc recognized that constructing
a chronograph capable of measuring
1/1,000s of a second over a useful interval
presented four challenges:
1. The movement must be precise, and
simply increasing the frequency of the
balance wheel would not work, because
engaging the chronograph would cause a
significant loss of amplitude, reducing
precision.
2. A gear train that advanced 1,000 times
per second would be subjected to wear
The movement is a
clean-sheet-of-paper
design.
and tear that would reduce the movement’s
longevity.
3. The chronograph indications must be
legible. Measuring to the nearest
1/1,000s of a second means nothing if the
elapsed time to the third decimal cannot
be easily read.
4. The chronograph must be useable in
the real world, meaning it must be able to
measure intervals longer than just a few
minutes.
To meet these challenges, Montblanc
teamed up with independent watchmaker
Bartomeu Gomila, who had an ingenious