The Credor Spring Drive Sonnerie

The 2006 Baselworld exhibition witnesses the premiere of another landmark timepiece, the Credor Spring Drive Sonnerie. The challenge followed naturally from the success of Spring Drive, a watch that presents, visually, the pure, natural and continuous motion of time. Could this new visual representation of the calm, pure passage of time be expressed in sound as well as by the smooth movement of the hands across the dial.
The Spring Drive Movement The watch is built on the base of the ground-breaking Spring Drive movement 7R series with its glide-motion hands and 48 hour power reserve. Onto this Spring Drive movement is added the "sonnerie" mechanism which has its own, entirely separate barrel, ensuring that this mechanism has more than 40 hours of power reserve. The power reserve is shown on a second indicator at the two o'clock position. The movement is easy to operate with just the one crown at the 3 o'clock position and a mode indicator at 6 o'clock. The movement comprises over 600 individual parts, each uniquely made and, of course, hand assembled and finished to the highest levels of precision.
The Hour Striking Function The "sonnerie" mechanism has an hour striking function. It is built around typical Japanese hanging bell sound. This was chosen because its unique and lingering sound harmonizes with the natural flow of time and space. Purity of sound was the greatest challenge, and the achievement of the perfect bell sound was made possible by the remarkable combination of a bell system, the use of a newly developed governor and the unique sound escape system that allows the chime sound to pass through the case. This governor mechanism is a remarkable innovation. It uses the viscosity of air so that the chime sounds at very precise intervals and there is no other sound to interfere with the pure strike of the bell. Combined with the entirely silent Tri-synchro regulator, the absolute silence of the whole movement is ensured and the complete purity of the sound is the delightful result. The hour striking function can be set to one of three different modes: an hourly strike, three hourly strike, or silence. To power the hour striking function, a spring exclusive to this mechanism is used in parallel with the watch mechanism's barrel. The hour repeating function announces the current time by chiming each hour when the button located at the 8 o'clock position is pressed. A silent function is included so that chiming can be muted as long as the button located at 8 o'clock position is pressed halfway down. The movement has a "fail-safe" mechanism to prevent the chime sounding when inappropriate actions are performed by mistake.

• Specifications: Case: 18-karat pink gold
• Band: Crocodile
• Glass: Dual surface curved sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating
• Water resistance: Non water-resistant
• Size: [Case outside diameter] 43.2mm/[Thickness] 16.0mm
• Retail price: 15 million Japanese Yen (excluding tax and import duty)
• Caliber Details: Spring Drive Sonnerie caliber, 7R06
• Hour striking function Three modes selectable: chiming every hour on the hour/chiming every three hours/silent
• Hour repeating function
• Power reserve indicators: Two. One each for the watch mechanism and the bell mechanism