In this year’s Best of the Best, we continue to honour the brands and people who have continued to create covetable products, even in the midst of a global pandemic. Here, we have FP Journe Résonance win ‘best chronometry’
FP Journe’s Chronomètre à Résonance was the first wristwatch to incorporate the phenomenon of resonance, in which two balances in motion effectively beat in opposition to counterbalance each other’s time- keeping discrepancies, resulting in greater accuracy. The solution was first developed in a pocket watch by 18th-century master Abraham-Louis Breguet. To date, Journe is the only watchmaker who creates wristwatches using Breguet’s exact principle for the method. A unique version of his first model, created in 2000, sold at Phillips in June last year for a record-breaking US$1.09 million (S$1.48 million). That headline news also happened to coincide with the model’s 20th anniversary and followed the release of Journe’s latest improvement to his masterpiece to produce an even more accurate Résonance, with the new rose-gold calibre Ref 1520.
It contains the same double-balance design, but the movement now comes with one mainspring barrel and a differential directing energy to each of the separate going trains, both of which have a one-second remontoir d’egalite (a function that provides constant force to the escapement).
This means that it’s no longer compulsory to wind it at 24 hours thanks to the remontoirs d’egalites, which allow for a rate of stability around 30 hours. Effectively, in its final state of production at the manufacture, it would have zero discrepancy in its timekeeping during a 30-hour window.
This exacting precision is the ultimate slam dunk in chronometry and intellectual watchmaking. But you may have to wait years till one appears at auction or exchanges hands privately. The Résonance aside, every FP Journe men’s model is sold out through 2022.
