What made the 7750 so different was that its operating system didn’t rely on column wheels, but rather on levers to operate the different functions of the chronograph using an oblong-shaped cam. The latter may sound like a given now, but back then it was a rarity, even in the Swiss watchmaking industry.
This wasn’t his only advantage because Capt also had the help of Donald Rochat and a computer to make drawings and calculations. To speed up the development Capt used the Valjoux Caliber 7733 as his starting point, a manual-wind chronograph. Valjoux not only wanted him to develop the movement as quickly as possible, but it also needed to be a robust, reliable, and accurate automatic chronograph that was relatively inexpensive to make and included a quick-set day and date.Īs if this wasn’t enough pressure, by this time the Japanese were already conquering valuable market positions with their quartz watches, which would later have a major impact on the history of the 7750. That put Valjoux in a tight spot, and the company decided that it was up to its fresh hire, Edmond Capt, to get the company out of it. Zenith El Primero chronograph movement from 1969 And Breitling, Hamilton, Heuer, Buren and Dubois Dépraz had joined forces and launched the Chronomatic movement in that same year. In 1969 Zenith-Movado introduced its first automatic chronograph movement: the El Primero. The history of Caliber 7750 started when Valjoux found itself in somewhat of a predicament. But for me the movement itself, the stories behind it, and its performance on the wrist transformed it into my favorite automatic chronograph movement. Of course, this is a personal preference, and one can easily make a similarly passionate statement about any of the other chronograph movements. While my knowledge deepened and I got to know other chronograph movements made by Lémania, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Zenith, and Frédéric Piguet, the Valjoux 7750 stuck with me. I became impressed by its performance and enamored by its little quirks. While that watch has come and gone now, something did stay and that was my love for its movement: the Valjoux 7750. I ended up getting a Hamilton Khaki Chronograph, which I bought from its first owner and only paid a few hundred euros for. I wanted one of every kind of complication: although tourbillons, perpetual calendars, and the like were still far beyond my means, an automatic chronograph was doable.
Although I worked two jobs on the side to feed my growing addiction, even in those days it didn’t get me as far as I would have liked to go. When I first got into watches, I was fresh into college.
0 kommentar(er)
