Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. Bernard Favre Presents A Winder for Hand-Wound Watches, The Crown Ultimate
And it's also a stunning-looking object...
Watch winders are useful objects that many collectors own. These are practical for automatic watches, especially if you tend to swap watches regularly. They are all the more useful for watches with annual or perpetual calendars that are not always easy to set. Winders are extremely rare for manual wind watches… A specialist craftsman in the field, Bernard Favre, had repeated requests from clients for a watch winder dedicated to hand-wound movements. He ended up developing the Crown Ultimate, a beautiful “universal” winder for manual watches.
Once a professional musician, Bernard Favre has been crafting tailor-made watch winders for over 20 years, often lending his skills to some of the most prestigious names in the Swiss watch industry. In 2009, he designed the Planet, a mesmerizing gyroscopic watch winder inspired by historical marine chronometers in a gimbal box.
There are, however, several challenges to face in designing a winder for watches with hand-wound movements. First, as the watch has no rotor, you need to wind via the crown and you need to adapt to all sorts of watches and shapes. Then, as your movement’s barrel has no sliding bridle, you should not overwind the watch (which can cause severe damage).
In this respect, the Bernard Favre Crown Ultimate can be adapted to various watches thanks to mobile rods. The watch support can also be rotated or moved vertically to ensure perfect positioning of the crown, regardless of the design of your watch and of the position of its crown (watches with a crown at 2, 4 or 6 o’clock won’t be a problem). Secondly, Bernard Favre developed a sensor-based system that adjusts to your watch’s movement, analysing its state of winding and stopping just as it is about to be fully wound with no risk of damaging the movement – the over-winding issue has thus been tackled.
Besides its practical interest, the Bernard Favre Crown Ultimate is a beautiful object inspired by yesteryear watchmaking tools. It is made of satin-brushed and polished steel and gold-plated brass. Its functionality is enriched by a wide array of traditional artisanal decorations: screws are flamed-blued screws, wheels feature circular satin finished, knurling adorns knobs…
The Bernard Favre Crown Ultimate launches in a first limited and numbered edition of 68 pieces. The price is set at CHF 13,800. For more information, please visit www.bernardfavre.ch.
7 responses
Are we talking about a hand-operated machine that does exactly what a hand does !?
I wish I had so much money to spend on useless objects like this one !
Beautiful looking machine! That’s a fantastic work of art to be proudly displayed at home or office. Now, for winding, I see more risks of damaging your watch using it daily vs your regular hand wind. On other words, you already have the most sophisticated and priceless watch winder built in: your fingers.
Nice looking piece of machinery. Now, let’s see. Priced at more than my watches cost, and I still will have to use my hands in some capacity, I assume. Plus the fact my hands have been doing an adequate and proficient job up till now. And again, I’m being asked to spend quite a bit more than what my watches cost to get a winder to do what my hands do quite well and within a minimal amount of time. Yeah! Right! As if! And tell me how long is the waiting list? Ha! Where’s that tree I saw money growing on? I’ll pass, thank you.
Ingenious solution to an inexistent problem!
Nice piece of work. It’s a piece of art really. I need one or two of these beauties.
Wait, doesn’t everyone have a man for that?
It is powered and auotmatic, it is not manual. There is a USB c port on the bottom wooden plate whichi I assume is for power and there is a switch close to the nob on the bottom brass plate. It also mentioned that it has sensors to monitor the winding tension to avoid overwinding. A gimmik for sure, but it is not simply an expensive crank.