Andersen Geneve
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DETAILS
Andersen Genève was founded by independent watchmaker Svend Andersen, who also co-founded the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI) in 1985, which promotes the art of the best independent watchmakers in the world. Previously, from 1969, he had worked for nine years in the Atelier des Complications at Patek Philippe. Years of involvement in the manufacture, restoration, modification and adjustment of antique and complicated mechanical watches and movements allowed him to expand his skills, artistic taste and experience. After working at Patek Philippe, he set up his own workshop in the late 1970s and began offering handcrafted watches with complicated or simple movements, skeletonization, engraving and grand feu enamel as an independent watchmaker under the Créations Cabinotiers Andersen & Cie brand. He later launched a series of his own designs under the Andersen Genève brand, which are still aimed at collectors and connoisseurs of the Geneva watchmaking tradition today.
Andersen Genève is one of the most exclusive luxury watch brands in the world and has produced an estimated 1,300 to 1,500 watches in forty-five years, an average of 30 to 40 watches per year, many of which are made to one of their designs or entirely to order. Since 2022, the brand has been made up of two small teams of watchmakers, one in the center of Geneva on the banks of the Rhône and the other in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
REASONS TO BUY
This Heures Sautantes Cadran Jade Noire Limited Edition 50 Special Order is a perfect example of the elegance and craftsmanship of Andersen Genève. The jumping hour complication in the brand’s version gives the watch a minimalist and extremely attractive appearance. This gives the dial in black jade, a material that is extremely rare on a watch dial, the most favorable stage to show itself in all its splendor. The refined yet traditional combination of platinum and rose gold – thanks to the genius of Abraham-Louis Breguet, who first proposed it more than two hundred years ago – makes this watch irresistible.
ABOUT THIS WATCH
The story of the Andersen Genève wristwatch with jumping hour complication began in 1995 with a request from collector Walter Haselberger for a unique watch based on an old Victorin Piguet pocket watch minute repeater movement with an additional mechanism for a jumping 24-hour hand and a small minute counter on the dial. The same complication appeared in 1998 in the Pasha Jour et Nuit watch, designed and produced by Svend Andersen for Cartier in a limited edition of 125 pieces. Later, this complication appeared in numerous limited editions and customized watches under the names Jour et Nuit (originally) and Grand Jour et Nuit.
One of the bespoke watches made at the request of Adrian Alred of Convopiece, featured a somewhat simplified version of the complication, with a small minute hand and a digital jumping hour in a window (in 12-hour format). Following this unique piece, Andersen Genève created the Jumping Hours 40th Anniversary in 2020 in a limited edition of 40 pieces in rose gold, based on the same display module and celebrating the brand’s 40th anniversary. The same model was released a year later in platinum, also limited to 40 pieces. The special features of both editions are the breathtaking dials in blued 21-carat gold with the Magical Losanges guilloché pattern. This version of the complication proposed by Svend Andersen has a certain advantage for decorative watches, as the time display only takes up a small part of the dial and almost the entire surface is available for decoration.
In 2024, Andersen Genève unveiled an exceptional Jumping Hours edition, limited to 50 pieces and featuring perhaps the most sophisticated combination of platinum, rose gold and black jade. It is Andersen Genève’s latest interpretation of the Jumping Hours complication – the Heure Sautante. The bar is set very high, as the black jade plates, which are cut to a thickness of just 0.4 mm, prove to be an extremely fragile material for a dial. It takes incredible skill – and luck – to make it without breakage. According to the brand, nine out of ten dial blanks are faulty, so there will probably never be a complete edition, only a limited run of 10 to 15 pieces.
This Heures Sautantes Cadran Jade Noire combines a platinum case with a rose gold crown, while the minute track and logo are applied to the black jade dial with rose gold powder. From a distance, the dial appears completely black, but up close you can see the veins and structure of the jade, which makes each dial unique due to the uniqueness of the natural stone. The platinum case is made with the craftsmanship typical of Andersen Genève watches. The bezel, case back and soldered lugs are highly polished, while the caseband has a brushed finish. A glance through the sapphire crystal caseback reveals the movement, which is based on the Frédéric Piguet 11.50, and its artisanal finishing. Traditional elements such as hand-polished chamfers, bridges with Côtes de Genève, a mainplate with perlage and polished screws are complemented by typical Andersen Genève watchmaking features. First and foremost, the 18k gold rotor, which is hand-guilloched with a grain d’orge motif, and the “A” logo on a small plate on the barrel bridge, which is secured with a blued screw.
Surrounding the movement is a ring of 21-carat blued gold with the freehand engraved inscriptions “Andersen Genève” and “L’Art de l’heure sautante”. The presence of the second inscription and the unusual violet-fuchsia color of the blued ring distinguish this custom-ordered example from other watches of this edition. Also noteworthy is the number 5/50, which is engraved on the caseback but not on the 21-carat blued gold ring.
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