Discount Wrist Watches

Louis Cottier
A Watchmaking Genius Ahead of his Time
by Osvaldo Patrizzi

It was in 1950 that Cottier invented and realized what many people consider one of the most practical innovations of modern horology: the World Time system with two crowns. In addition to a greater security and precision in the choice and maintenance of the city of reference, it offered greater protection against shocks and wear on the bezel bearing the city names. The possibility of printing the city names rather than incising them, thanks to the protective glass, resulted in greater legibility.

Louis Cottier invented and produced a few models of a watch with two dials and only one movement for Patek Philippe n 1954 . This solved the problem of synchronizing the minute hand, a problem which existed in twin-movement watches by other manu-facturers.

In 1958 he made a linear hour watch for Patek Philippe. This model eliminated the use of hands and dial, as the passing time was indicated within two graduated openings on the case, the hour and minute indications being printed helicoidally on rollers. However, this model remained a prototype and was never produced.

The Two Time Zone movement with two or three hands, developed along with the Patek Philippe engineers, may be counted among his most suc-cessful inventions. It was patented by the firm in 1959, no.340191 (see Antiquorum’s November 1999 sale, lot 527).

After the creation of the Prix de la Ville de Geneve in 1959, Louis Cottier was responsible, along with Alfred Chapuis, for the organization of the famous exhibition “Montres & Bijoux”, which was devoted to automata.

Ever active, brilliant but modest despite the tre-mendous reputation he had earned in the world of horology – at Patek, he was regarded as a sort of living legend – he remained faithful to his work-bench, where he continued to invent fantastic me-chanisms with his usual humility, mechanisms which even today provoke our wonder and admi-ration.

Louis Cottier died on September 16, 1966 in Ca-rouge. His production totaled 455 movements for World Time pocket watches, wristwatches, and clocks, produced at an average rate of 13 pieces per year. Only 179 of these are movements for pocket watches, sold by various firms, of which 17 have a central cloisonné enamel dial.

One of the characteristics that make Louis Cottier’s World Time timepieces recognizable, whatever firm they were made for, is the unusual shape of the hands, particularly the hour hand. They were enti-rely hand-made and therefore give a unique cha-racter to each piece. This can be considered a sort of “signature” that sets Cottier’s pieces apart from all others.