![]() By the end of the very same afternoon, the lucky winner had brought the watch back for repair after it stopped working. The 6139 by comparison was an integrated, column wheel chronograph like the El Primero, but uneing one of the first watches containing this marvelous new contraption. At the NYC press conference on March 3 rd announcing the arrival of the prototype Caliber 11, a draw was held with the prize b In addition, because it had been made so quickly, it was rife with problems since literally day one. Rather, it was basically an already existing automatic movement with a chronograph module bolted to the top. The Caliber 11 had been built in a hurry, and as such was not a fully integrated unit as the El Primero and 6139 were. (Credit: Zenith)īut although simple math would suggest the El Primero was actually the last to see the light of day out of the three players, an argument can be made that it beat them both, not least in functionality. A homage of the original Chronograph from Zenith. Seiko were the first to market with their take on the problem, the 6139, which launched in the May, while the Chronomatic Group became the first Swiss company to release an example when they unveiled the Caliber 11 in August. But the Zenith El Primero didn’t actually put in its debut appearance until that September. In truth, Zenith announced theirs first, at a press conference in January of 1969. The debate over who actually created the first automatic chronograph has gone on for a generation now. In the end, all three released their breakthroughs in 1969. In Japan, Seiko had started work on their own mechanism, and just down the road from Zenith’s headquarters, a new alliance had formed called The Chronomatic Group, made up of Heuer, Breitling, Hamilton-Buren and Dubois Depraz, intent on beating both rivals to it. To make matters worse, it had now turned into a competition. The idea was to have it cracked by 1965, with ambitions to celebrate Zenith’s centenary that year by unveiling their new self-winding chronograph watch and astounding the world.ġ965 passed with the world left distinctly un-astounded as the movement failed to materialize, as it also did in the four years that followed, the technical difficulties of the task eluding even the expertise of some of the finest engineers Switzerland had to offer. In 1962, Swiss manufacture Zenith started laying down the initial blueprints of their attempt to solve the problem, teaming up with fellow countrymen Movado. However, the enduring riddle of how to make an automatic caliber that could drive one had eluded the industry for decades. From their very first examples, chronographs have been one of, if not the, most popular types of complication in mechanical watchmaking.
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