Chiming watches are among the most complicated mechanical watches. But there are different types of chiming watches, with different amounts of hammers and gongs. Most common is the minute repeater, which can chime the hours, quarters and minutes on demand. Much less common is the grande sonnerie, which chimes the hours and quarters automatically at the passage of each quarter, in addition to the minute repeater function. Few watch brands offer such complications and even fewer can trace their production back to before the turn of the millennium.
This puts Bulgari on a pedestal in the matter of grande sonnerie watches, since the company offers no fewer than three different grande sonnerie movements, the oldest of which has been in production without interruption since 1994. The GG calibre 31001 offers grande sonnerie, petite sonnerie (chiming the hours and quarters but without repeating the hours at each quarter) and minute repeater functions, plus it has a tourbillon. The calibre 31002 is an evolution of the same calibre used in the more recent Octo Grande Sonnerie model (picture above). The BVL5307 calibre takes the already rare complication to a whole new level, since it is self-winding and can therefore ensure continuous operation of the chiming function without any need for winding (assuming that the watch is worn regularly, of course).
Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater © Bulgari
Chiming watches are equipped with two, three or four hammers and gongs. Most minute repeaters have two hammers, each of which strikes a different gong. One hammer is used to strike the hours and another for the minutes, with the two in combination striking the quarters. Bulgari’s grande sonnerie watches, on the other hand, have a total of four hammers and gongs, which means that they can reproduce the world-famous chimes of Big Ben (known in high-end watch circles as the “Westminster Chime”).
Making the gongs themselves requires particular aptitude, since the metal used, the length, the tempering process and the assembly can all have an impact on the ultimate sound of the chimes. In days gone by, watchmakers would note the different colours of the gongs they produced in order to have a record that they could match to the different sounds they produce.
Valenza functions as an improvement to the High heeled workshop in Rome, the Accessories Manufacture at Florence, in addition to the workshops growing and assembling watch mechanisms in Switzerland.With this complicated, but definitely bright outlook to the future, Bulgari will continue to assist women express, enrich, and delight themselves with a few of the best jewelry — including those bits with a ticking soul inside. We will continue to find Bulgari’s combined world of fine jewellery and watchmaking having a look in the Serpenti, one of the most recognizable and yet inimitable of women’ haute joaillerie watches.Bulgari broke another watch album for 2016 by producing the world’s thinnest minute repeater for this beautiful Bulgari Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater watch. More or less selling out of its intended manufacturing, Bulgari privately lamented the fact that they chose to create the Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater as a limited edition of 50 pieces. After the first full day of Baselworld 2016, it was clear that the clean and impressive minute repeater was a hit for the watch market. Following is a look at this blatantly sober-looking yet distinctive-on-the-wrist “Octo Repetition Minutes. “So let us talk dimensions, because this is a record-breaking watch. The Bulgari Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater case is 6.85mm thick and 40mm wide in a cool sand-blasted titanium material.
CarillonTourbillon © Bulgari
The hammers and gongs are two vital components in the striking mechanism, but chiming watch movements require hundreds of other components (no fewer than 923 in the case of the calibre 5307) in order to function. Even when these components have been machined to tolerances down to the nearest micron, the experienced hand of a skilled watchmaker is vital during the assembly process. Bulgari has four watchmakers who work exclusively on such complications. As with most grand complications, the same watchmaker will be responsible for each movement from start to finish, usually assembling and disassembling the movement completely at least once before assembling it prior to encasing. This stage alone can take anything from four months up to a year, depending on the level of complexity of the movement.
Even once the movement is assembled and working perfectly, however, it will only gain its true voice once it has been correctly encased and adjusted. For any chiming watch, the case is not just a means of protecting the movement, it also acts as a resonance chamber to project the sound of the chimes and the type of metal used in its construction can therefore be very important for the end result. Bulgari is at an advantage, since it produces all its watch cases in-house, which means that the brand’s chiming watch cases can be built to the exact specification required to obtain the best sound.