Louis-Frederic Flyback Chronograph
After having explored the heritage of Abraham-Louis Perrelet, precursor of the automatic movement, Perrelet is now advancing another major invention, but this time coming from a different member of the illustrious Perrelet timekeeping dynasty—Louis-Frederic (1781 – 1854).
Grandson of Abraham-Louis and student of Abraham-Louis Breguet, Louis-Frederic lived in Paris where, in 1827, he filed a patent for a `flyback chronograph counter´ with the French Academy of Sciences. Perrelet was granted the patent for this device, which was also called the `double stop counter´, in 1828. He was one of the pioneers of this mechanism (along with Joseph Thaddeus Winnerl who presented a flyback chronograph in 1831), which permitted the measure of an intermediate time.
Given new life after being acquired by Miguel Rodriguez (owner of the Festina group) and under the active direction of Marc Bernhardt, Perrelet is expanding its product palette with the introduction of a `Louis-Frederic Flyback Chronograph´.
This semi-skeletonized watch is equipped with an automatic movement, Calibre P-241 with a frequency of 28,800 vib/h (4Hz), which is largely visible on the face of the piece thanks to four discs of printed mineral glass. With no hands, the chronograph indications are made using small red arrows that point to 12 o’clock on the minute disc of the chronograph and to 6 o’clock on the chronograph hour disc. The disc located at 3 o’clock shows the date while the one at 9 o’clock gives the small seconds.
More classically, the hours and minutes of the time function are shown using central hands, as is the seconds of the chronograph. All three point towards the outer circle. The seconds of the flyback function is also central, of course, but being shorter and red, it points towards the inner circle. Its stop and flyback functions are activated by a push piece located at 10 o’clock, while the start/stop chronographic functions and the return to zero are activated by push pieces at 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock. The anti-reflective sapphire crystal case back offers an additional view of the movement (46 hours of power reserve) and its oscillating weight stylized and decorated by Perrelet.
With its very contemporary display and bracelet (rubber with fold-over clasp in white or rose gold), the `Louis-Frederic Flyback Chronograph´ presents, however, a more neo-classic look with its fluted middle case made of 18 carat white gold and its bezel in 18 carat white gold or 4N rose gold. The white gold bezel version is limited to a series of 27 pieces, while the rose gold model is available in a series of 50 pieces.
Source: Europa Star April-May 2009 Magazine Issue
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