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Until recently it was thought that Nicholas Rieussec, now a model line from Montblanc, invented the proto-chronograph in the early 1820s. This was simply a machine with the ability to measure an interval of time from an arbitrary starting point. This was a crude thing with a dial which rotated under an inked nib, which could be dropped to make a small dot on command. In the last few months that invention has been superceeded by a much more "modern" chronograph, still more of a stopwatch, invented by Louis Moinet(see previous) in 1815. The machine was named the compteur de tierces, that is the counter of thirds - an archaic term for 1/60ths of a second, and includes all of the things we would expect in a modern stopwatch, including the ability to start, stop and reset the hands, a feature previously thought to have been invented in 1862 by Adolphe Nicole.

Described in Moinet's Traité Général d'Horlogerie, this watch is made the more impressive by its high frequency oscillating balance, 30hz, fast enough to make the tierce measurements pretty accurate. The movement was made in England, betrayed by the case hallmarks and the fusee, but also has some Franco-Swiss design elements, including the dial and the ruby-cylander mounted under a small, undecorated cock(yes, yes, yes...but the description is accurate).

Below is a layout of the movement pieces mostly disassembled. Only the fusee and chain, and one wheel are still mounted on the bottom plate
Below is the movement reassembled, but uncased. Visible through the hole in the plate is the large escape wheel, with the flying "feet" characteristic of the cylinder escapement.

(source 1, source 2)

Unknown to the watch-collecting world until its appearence in the current Christie's (previously mentioned)auction, the oldest Patek Philippe(see previous) grand complication, was made in 1898 and sold in 1900 to Stephen Palmer for 6'000 CHF. It has been kept in the Palmeer family ever since and is being sold, quite remarkably, with the original box and papers, and a typed set of setting instructions from the original owner. The watch features the usual set of grand-complications, split-second chronograph, perpetual calendar with moonphase and minute-repeater with grand and petit sonnerie. Expected price is $1 to $1.5 million when it is sold as lot 71 at auction June 11, 2013.

In the above picture you can see the split-second mechanism, the peanut-shaped thing in the middle at the top and the ratchety wheel above, the main chronograph wheels, thin-walled brass wheels at the top of the movemenet, and the repeater chimes, steel wires encircling the movement. The Sonnerie and Minute repeater works would be under the dial, as is probably the perpetual calendar plate

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Patek Philippe(previous) has updated their former flagship, the 5002 Sky Moon Tourbillon, and released it as the ref. 6002, still called a Sky Moon Tourbillon.  The overall details remain mostly the same, 43.5×18mm case, in this case 18kt White Gold, manually-wound caliber RTO27QRSIDLUCL. providing the following features (letters in parenthesis are from the caliber name):

• 55 Jewels
• 48 Hour power reserve
• Minute Repeater ®
• Tourbillon (TO)
• Sidereal Time (SID)
• Retrograde perpetual calendar (QR) - this is the major change from the 5002, the addition of a retrograde calendar.
• Moonphase (LU) and lunar progression
• Display of the constellations of the northern hemisphere (CL I guess, it's all that is left)

The changes are mostly in the case, which has been deeply hand engraved on every possible surface, and the front dial, now cloisonné and champlevé enamel. The press-release claims 100 hours of labor into the case alone. If you have to ask, the answer is not available to your sort, Patek does not provide even MSRP for their high-end, and they only sell them to 'established' customers. The simple ref.5002 sold in the range of $1,500,000, so....

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As recently as 2009, Christophe Claret(see previous) swore that he wasn't a watch brand, just a brilliant hired-gun watchmaker working for the top brands. That's all over with a new model released at this years Baselworld and a special edition for Only Watch 2013 (see previous years). Personally I think he should have stayed in the movement realm and let someone else handle the design, since his pieces are, almost universally, over-wrought hunks of post-modern excess, but mechanically peerless.

First from Claret is an addition to his X-TREM-1 line, the Pinball. He's retained the signature tourbillon and moving-sphere time indication, but reworked the case and movement to look like a pinball game (no reason was given), in a blue and orange color scheme. The case remains 40.8mmx56.8mm and 15mm thick, made of titanium with sapphire crystals and tubes. The movement is the FLY11 caliber, containing 419 parts, 64 jewels and maintains a 21,600 BPH for a power reserve of 50 hours. Winding and setting are done by independent flip-up levers on the back of the case.

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Released as regular production at Baselworld was the Kantharos, a automatic chronograph with constant-force mechanism (sometimes called a remontoire) and a strangely-pointless chime, which strikes a single note each time the chronograph button is pushed, to start, stop or reset the chrono. The case is round, available in Titanium or gold and measures 45×15.8mm. The movement, Claret caliber MBA13, is bigger then the average watch of only a few years back, at 37.6×10.5 mm, and contains 75 jewels in it 558 components. MSRP starts at 98,000 CHF, making this the entry-level model of Claret's line.

To answer the obvious questions:

• Yes. Part of the mainplate is made of synthetic sapphire, with synthetic rubies set into it for jewels. Claret pioneered this sapphire-as-plate in work he did for UN several years back
• Yes. It does list every feature of the watch on the subdials

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SJX has seen the beast in-person and has some live pics over at his blog, they're worth a look

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Additional promotional material, crazy teaser movie

The DB25 Imperial Fountain series of 12 watches by DeBethune has been previously mentioned from their press release.  Here are some live pictures of the watch, including closeups of the hand-engraved dials, each of which has all 12 zodiac signs.

All 12 watches
closeup of Pig	Calibre DB2145 closeup

(Photos by Paul Boutros, source)
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Last year HYT came out with the H1, the first watch with a fluid display.  Powered by a Chronode movement, it used a ultra-thin glass tube and two bellows to move a pair or non-reacting fluids so that the meniscuc between them indicated the hour, while a standard minute hand rotated around the dial.  For 2013 they have a completely different movement design, with smaller, angled bellows and some Renaud et Papi design elements the HNR indicator is a signature of theirs.  I don't really like it, but the animations on their website are fun at least.

Specs:

• Case
  • titanium with black DLC coating
  • 48.8mm
  • rubber-coated screw-down crown
  • 50m WR
  • sapphire crystals, AR coated
• Movement
  
  • Made by APRP (Audemars Piguet/Renaud et Papi) to HYT's design
  • 21,600 BPH
  • titanium bridges, PVD coated
  • 8 day power reserve
  • thermometer at 9 o'clock

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After some pretty weak years (see Type XXII, double Tourbillon, creepy reaching-hand Reveil, etc) Breguet(previously mentioned) is back to their strengths with some 2013 Baselworld releases.

First up is the Ref 5277, a 4 day manually-wound watch in a 1996-standard size case of 38×8mm. Movement is a modified F.Piguet, case is white or rose gold and dial is hand-guilloche (same for nearly all the releases this year). Personally I prefer the rose-gold case and could do without the "96" on the RdM, but it's a strong start.

Next we have the Ref 7727 Chronometre. This was announced as a prototype last year but has finally made it to full production. What makes this watch unusual is the ultra-high-speed escapement 10Hz (normal watches run 3-4Hz) made entirely of silicon and the magnetic suspension. The tiny little hand at 2 o'clock makes 1 revolution every 2 seconds, making use of the high-speed escapement. The movement view through the display back is interesting, if not really attractive.

The third piece is the first new simple tourbillon Breguet has put out since the Messidor, and the first new tourbillon caliber since they acquired Lemania. It's classic Breguet design, with a slightly-off-center tourbillon and an RdM at about 9 o'clock. On the reverse they implemented a peripheral rotor to keep the automatic winding without obscuring the movement. That style has been tried on and off for the last 40 years, without much success, but we'll see what they do with it. The escapement is partially silicon, partially anti-magnetic steel. The engraving on the movement is not to my taste, but better then the usual Baroque work they do on their skeleton pieces.

Finally a new ladies watch, the Reine de Naples Day and Night. Named for a sister of Napoleon who supposedly received one of the first wristwatches as a gift, the Reine de Naples(see previous) is the high-end Breguet ladies line, always with the egg-shaped case. This one includes a Karrusel, a slow-moving balance platform, implemented to also be a 24-hour hand. The balance wheel acts as the sun and an engraved titanium disk as the moon on a lapis lazuli "sky" disk. Below are the usual hour and minute hands. The outer and inner bezel, as well as the crown, are set with diamonds, because apparently ladies watch == diamonds.

(photos by Paul Boutros, source)

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Bulgari(previously mentioned) has released another watch based on their excellent Gerald Genta minute-repeater caliber, the Commedia dell'Arte. The Caliber BV 618 movement has been expanded to include automota on the dial, which do a little dance when the repeater chimes; however this necessitated reducing the number of striking hammers from 4 (Westminster chime) to 2 (regular repeater). In this case the moving characters are Brighella, Pulcinella and Arlecchino, in different configurations depending on the scene chosen for the watch. The dial and the moving parts are engraved 18kt gold and low temp enamel (baked at about 80C, not the 700C of Grand Feu enamel).

Bulgari "Commedia dell' Arte" from Allucinazione on Vimeo.

Finally some pictures of the artisans working on decorating the dial

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Miniaturization has gotten to the point that there's now a complete Cesium based atomic clock module that's about the size of a matchbook (yes, 18th Century size reference). Based on that Hoptroff, a small British firm that makes high-tech electronic watches, has designed the first pocket watch with an internal Cesium reference. The Hoptroff 10 will be quite the beast, 82×25mm, and priced under, but nearing $100,000. Interestingly the dial, at least the sketch that they've released with the PR, is very much in the style of the great 17th and 18th C watchmakers, possibly harking back to the last time England was truly important in world horology.

For that you get all the following bits and pieces:

Internals:

• Symmetricom Chip Scale Atomic Clock
• USB socket
• 4 x pusher actuators
• 9 x Soprod bimotors (permits hands to move in reverse, they're the little black V-shaped things with 4 copper coils)
• 10 x Soprod monomotors (only moves hands clockwise, small black blobs with only 2 coils)
• 6 x PIC microcontrollers
• 60 x side-emitting LEDs
• Flexipanel Bluetooth Low Energy radio
• Sensirion humidity / temperature sensor
• Measurement Specialties pressure sensor
• Freescale magnetometer
• Union Fortune Lithium Polymer battery pack sandwiched between circuit boards (not visible)

Functions:

1. Hours
2. Minutes
3. Seconds
4. Annual wheel
5. Magnetic compass
6. Longitude - coarse scale
7. Not shown due to patent applications
8. Day of week
9. Humidity
10. Date
11. Sidereal seconds
12. Power remaining
13. Tide forecast
14. Tide height
15. Temperature
16. Atmospheric pressure
17. Latitude - minutes
18. Latitude - degrees
19. Sidereal hours
20. Sidereal minutes
21. Longitude - minutes
22. Longitude - degrees
23. Microwave resonator status
24. Charge status
25. Atomic resonance lock indicator
26. Clock status - atomic / ACXO / TCXO
27. Caesium oven status
28. Laser status
    

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Another addition to the DeBethune DB25 line (see previous) is a series of 12 watches commemorating the zodiac fountain that used to be housed in the Yuanmin Tuan (Old Summer Palace outside Beijing). While only 7 of the original 12 animal heads are still known, we know enough of the massive Clepsydra (water clock) from texts to know that it was built in the 17th century by a partnership of Chinese craftsmen and Italian Jesuit missionaries for the Qianlong Emperor. Each of the watches in the series has the same movement, DB Cal. 2145, a special deaign with hands that are on revolving disks, opening the center of the dial for the zodiac heads, hand-carved by Michèle Rothen. Below see one watch in its entirety and then closeups of several more heads.

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