Laurent Ferrier strides into Baselworld this year showing off its minimalist minute repeater piece.
Ferrier’s minute repeater is a 40mm steel piece, boasting a rose gold coloured dial which houses the central hours and minutes, shown with white gold hands and pointing towards white gold indicators at each hour. The dial also has a small seconds subdial, silvered and snailed at the 6 o’clock.
The manual winding calibre LF707.01 accounts for all this, as well as 80 hours of autonomy and the minute repeater chimes.
The striking mechanism is activated by a sliding bolt built into the left side of the case middle. Tiny hammers strike a two pitched gong to sound the hours, quarters and minutes.
A minute repeater watch strikes on demand a low pitched note for each hour, a double high and low pitched note for the quarters, and a high pitched note for every minute that has elapsed since the last quarter.
For example, if the time is 11:59 the minute repeater will sound 11 low tones representing 11 hours, 3 sequence tones representing 45 minutes and 14 high tones representing 14 minutes after 45 minutes.
The leather strap-clad Galet Minute School Piece will be available with alligator or calf straps.