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| Eberhard & Co. |
The name Eberhard has been inseparably linked with sports timekeeping from its early days. Just a few years after the company was founded in the Swiss mountain town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1887, Eberhard was commissioned to perform the timing of one of the first competitive motor races, with the result that the chronograph specialists soon earned an excellent reputation on both sides of the Alps. In Italy, for example, the brand was the official timekeeper for practically all the major car racing events well into the 1930s. Special models have also recently strengthened the reputation of this brand for connoisseurs. One example is the Tazio Nuvolari, a chronograph that the founder's successor, a motor sport enthusiast, named after the wiry race driver from Mantua in 1992. The watches of this collection commemorate one of Italy's popular heroes, known as the Flying Mantuan, a driver who piloted his race car to numerous successes in the 1930s.
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New developments such as the Traversetolo, a very large hand-wound watch outfitted with a vintage manufacture caliber, demonstrate that Eberhard not only preserves a sense of tradition but also has a soft spot for collectors with limited financial resources.
Encouraged by the spectacular success of its blend of traditional watchmaking skill and timeless elegance, the company recently ventured reviving an almost forgotten watchmaking specialty: the eight-day or so-called Hebdomas movement. The model 8 Days incorporates a modified form of the Peseux hand-wound movement that, thanks to an additional superimposed going barrel, can run for a full week on its own
power. I nstead of the usual 30- to 40-centimeter-long mainspring, the one employed in the 8 Days model has a length of more than 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) and is made of the finest quality wire. For this reason, the retrograde power reserve indicator on the dial is not divided into hours but into days, as marine chronometers once were.
The brand's latest innovation may be a stylistic gag, but it has an astounding effect. The counters of the new chronograph module, arranged in a straight line via an ingenious gear train under the dial, lend the Eberhard Chrono 4 such an unforgettable "face" that it is bound to cause more of a stir when worn than many very expensive manufacture products, much to the joy of its wearer. The new arrangement of the hand arbors made an additional thin module plate necessary - developed and produced inhouse at Eberhard & Co. - that is placed upon the base chronograph movement, ETA Caliber 2894. Since this is also built in modular fashion, using the main plate of Caliber 2892-A2 including its gear train, winding automatic and rate adjuster as its" motor," a large number of jewels were used to ensure that the complex mechanics could move without friction. There are a total of 53 jewels, 37 of which can already be found in the base chronograph movement. Skeletonized hands facilitate reading the stopped time during the problematic periods between 7:15 and 7:45 when the linearly arranged counters (including the subsidiary seconds and twenty-four-hour display) would otherwise be covered.
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Eberhard & Co.
Rabco Luxury Holdings, LLC
444 MAdison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 212-688-4500
USA: 212-888-5025
www.eberhard-co-watches.ch
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