The Ongoing Saga Of The World's Most Complicated Wristwatch: Superbia Humanitatis By Louis ...

Paul Gerber is a soft-spoken master of miniaturization, who has been constructing complications in his Zurich basement workshop since 1976 The 32-millimeter movement surfaced a century later in 1992 with the self-named "Master of Complications" and Gerber's A.H.C.I colleague, Franck Muller, who had given it the title "The Most Complicated Wristwatch in the World" Muller showed it in Basel 1992 as that year's edition of his annual specialty series - hence the moniker Caliber 92.

The movement grew 2.6 millimeters higher due to an extra bridge for the two additional sweep hands, giving Gerber the opportunity to add a sapphire crystal case back and immortalizing the engraved signatures of all three watchmakers Louis-Elysée Piguet, Franck Muller, and Paul Gerber and solving the height problem at the same time The dial Franck Muller had originally made for the timepiece remains the watch's "Face," with Gerber designing the chronograph complication so that the indications of the existing dial could be used, but also serving double duty: the permanent seconds and the chronograph's minute counter share a single subdial Lord Arran was still not yet ready to call his Louis-Elysée Piguet, Franck Muller, and Paul Gerber watch completed: he took it back to Gerber once again to have the tourbillon's ruby endstone replaced by a diamond in the tradition of the best haute horlogerie.

"In terms of the number of individual parts, the world's most complicated wristwatch is the Piguet/Muller/Gerber Grand Complication watch, which contains 1,116 parts It was most recently added to by master watchmaker Paul Gerber and is owned by Willy Ernst Sturzenegger, Territorial Earl of Arran." 5 Hz frequency; twin spring barrels; base movement 491 components; after modifications by Franck Muller: 651; after final modifications by Paul Gerber: 1,116 componentsFunctions: hours, minutes, subsidiary seconds; minute repeater with silence function and large & small sonnerie; added to by Franck Muller: perpetual calendar with moon phase, equation of time indication, 24-hour hand, thermometer displayed by a retrograde hand; added to by Paul Gerber: one-minute flying tourbillon with diamond endstone, flyback split-seconds chronograph with jump-minute counter, power reserve indications for going and chiming trains. . Source