The Habring² Josef Regulator With Dead-Beat Seconds

Twenty years ago, Austrian couple Maria and Richard Habring (the latter being famous already for his previous work at IWC, including developing the 7750-based Doppel Chronograph, among other clever mechanisms) started their own journey, an independent watchmaking brand known as Habring². Now one of the most respected indie watchmakers in their segment, one of the few brands to actually make watches and movements in Austria, Habring² has decided to celebrate two decades of passion-fueled timepieces with two new models: a moon phase model that we’ll cover in a later article, and this new Josef watch, a regulator that does more than just display the time in split sub-dials.

While some independent watchmakers are all about ultra-high-end finishing or record-breaking complications, Habring² went another route. Far more pragmatic, slightly original but still very usable on a daily basis. This combination of originality, cleverness of construction and search for true reliability and serviceability of the watches started with the development of the Doppelchronograph and further developed when the Habring couple decided to fly solo (well, in duo) in 2004.

The newest watch from the Austrian brand, the Habring² Josef, introduces a new regulator display. Watches that display the three time indications in separate sub-dials, regulators could be described as the ultimate benchmark, at least when it comes to precise time display. In these watches or clocks, the focus isn’t on the hours but on the minutes, as these were used in watchmaker workshops and observatories as reference clocks for the precise setting and calibration of other clocks. Habring² tackles this display for the first time with this new watch, the Josef.

The Habring² Josef launches in a case we’ve previously seen in the collection – it is close to the Erwin Tribute to WWW limited edition – with an attractive cushion shape, a reasonable 38.5mm diameter and a relatively short 47mm length. The thickness is also fairly decent, at 8.4mm without the crystal. The steel surfaces alternate between brushed and polished finishes, and the case is a well-balanced mix of elegance and sportiness. It’s water-resistant to 30m and equipped with sapphire crystals on both sides.

The dial of this new Habring² Josef is, without a doubt, the talking piece. A classic regulator at first sight, with hours, minutes and seconds read separately, there’s, however, more than meets the eye. Designed with Lee Yuen-Rapati (aka @oneourwatch on Instagram), it has a glossy white lacquer base with black printed railroad tracks – legible and typical of regulator watches – and original sub-dials that mimic the overall shape of the watch. Blued steel hands are used for the different indications, including a power reserve at 3 o’clock. But there’s something additional to this watch that static images can’t show… The seconds hand isn’t a classic sweeping seconds, but it uses the Habrings’ signature jumping seconds (dead-beat or seconde morte) display. Thanks to the escapement being positioned at 12 o’clock underneath the dial, Josef is one of the few regulator watches to correctly have its seconds displayed in this position. This makes Josef a complex reinterpretation of Erwin, the brand’s first jumping seconds watch based on the new manufacture calibre.

Talking about this, Josef is powered by the calibre A11GSP, which shares its architecture with most of the brand’s modern watches – the A11 base movement is used in Felix or Erwin – and if it shares some of its conception with an ETA Valjoux 7750, it is nevertheless a strong improvement over the old base and is done almost entirely in-house or thanks to finely selected suppliers from Austria and Switzerland. The movement runs at 4Hz, stores 48 hours of power reserve and is finely decorated by hand with polished edges, decorative engravings and perlage.

Worn on a nubuck leather strap, the Habring² Josef Regulator is released as part of the permanent collection and will be priced at EUR 7,450. For more details, please consult www.habring2.com.