Repetition Souveraine

REPETITION MINUTES SOUVERAINE

François-Paul Journe, audacious inventor of innovative time measurement at the peak of its ingenuity with a Première:

An ultra slim Minute Repeater

François-Paul Journe is continually searching to invent and craft timepieces which are both innovative and practical. He has managed both with his first ultra-slim Minute Repeater.

After the Grande Sonnerie, the minute repeater is the most complex and sophisticated of horological complication, one that demands the very utmost in both technical and artistic virtuosity.
To date, the oldest known watch with répétition minutes was produced around 1710 in Friedberg, Germany. This invention made it possible to tell the time during the night by
actuating a pusher on the case.  When activated by the pusher, the complication "tells" the time by causing two hammers to strike gongs which sound the hours, the quarters and the minutes.
In presenting this new ultra-slim minute repeater, François-Paul Journe once again raises the bar for striking watches. He has re-invented the minute repeater mechanism in a way which enables strong crystal clear tones to emanate from a seemingly impossibly svelte movement. A movement with a size of barely 4mm, more reminiscent of a simple hand wind calibre than a highly intricate and complex complication. This redevelopment has merited the application of two patents.

Unique patented Repetition Souveraine mechanism    
Two key technical developments have enabled François-Paul Journe to construct a sweet sounding ultra-slim repeater movement. The first is the flat gong, first seen on the F.P. Journe Grande Sonnerie, which produces a louder and clearer sound than traditional gongs. And because the gong is mounted under the dial, instead of around the movement, it allows more room for the movement.

The second is an innovative system of striking racks and strike selection mechanisms which take up much less space than conventional strike mechanisms.
Unlike traditional minute repeaters, the hours and minutes of the Repetition Souveraine do share the same hammer; so a pause is automatically inserted between hour and minute chimes when there are no quarters. The quarters sound with classic double chimes. An inertia regulator controls the speed of the chimes, thus eliminating the background noise usually associated with traditional air regulators.

The incomparable style of François-Paul Journe has sometime been copied, but his highly inventive technique is far more difficult to duplicate. With that in mind, after completing his majestic Grande Sonnerie, a watch rating 10/10 on the scale of complications, François-Paul Journe decided to follow up with yet another incredibly complex timepiece, the first ultra-slim Minute Repeater.