Weekly Watch Photos: Grönefeld Watches from the bench to the wild

It is summer! We’ve asked some of our good friends of the watchmaking industry to send us photos of their creations, worn on their own wrists during vacation time. What for? Just for the sake of the art and to see some of these beautiful timepieces far away from boutiques’ displays, in the ‘wild’. And the first examples to come are the Grönefeld Watches.

The Grönefeld watches are one of our favorites here, at Monochrome-Watches. These two dutch men are known for the magnificent movements they are producing, with something very unusual: stainless steel bridges and plates. Knowing how hard steel is compared to the usual brass or german silver used for bridges, imagine the level of work required when it comes to hand-bevel the angles. On the two photos above, you can admire the One Hertz and the new Parallax Tourbillon directly from the watchmakers’ bench.

But watches are made to live and even if we’re talking about very high-end and extremely well finished objects, they are manufactured to be on a wrist and to follow owners in their daily duties, next to an excellent cigar, around the table of a fine restaurant or into the wild.

The Parallax, Grönefeld’s last creation, is a highly interesting interpretation of the brand’s spirit. It comes with a pure and modern layout, made of several zones and layers, alternating frosted and brushed surfaces, to improve the view on every elements. The name ‘Parallax’ is due to the unique feature of this watch: a flying tourbillon that rotates perfectly in sync with the central seconds hand. It also features a stop-seconds mechanism for precise adjustment, a winding/setting selector and a power reserve indicator.

One of the nicest elements of the Grönefeld Watches (and we don’t want to minimize the rest of the watches here) are the stainless steel bridges, all finished by hand by Haute Horlogerie standards. It requires a master watchmaker to achieve a mirror polish by hand on such small surfaces and as it does not oxidize, the gleaming finish will last and last.

The ‘One Hertz’ also shares this magnificent construction with a rare complication: a dead beat mechanism. It means that its second hand will make a instant jump every second. But don’t be wrong, nothing common here with a quarry watch! It is all due to a highly complex mechanism. As explained here, ‘The Grönefeld One Hertz is unique among wristwatches in that its deadbeat seconds are powered by a secondary gear train that is independent of the gear train for the hour and minute indications. The deadbeat seconds are driven from one mainspring barrel and the hours and minutes from another. Friction with this system is guaranteed to an absolute minimum and the complication has no adverse influence on the escapement and free sprung balance”.

And what a pleasure to see such a complicated watch in the hard and row landscapes of Africa!