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 During the days of watches, Ulysse Nardin could be regarded both as a luxury item, which is due to its high prices and limited series, and as a very complex, accurate and exclusive mechanism. Jaquemart Minute Repeater model was unable to be reproduced in any other watch company as well as the Hour Striker San Harco model bearing the figure of a hammerer on the dial striking the hour.
The history of this unusual watch company started in 1846 when at
the age of 24, Ulysse Nardin, a Swiss, founded his own company that
manufactures marine chronometers. Despite the fact his father
Leonard-Frederic Jordan assembled only alarm clocks and watches with
tutoring, his talented son did not miscalculate. It is because in the
second half of the XIX century, during the time of all kinds of marine
discoveries, a ship returning into its native harbour mostly depended
on the accuracy of ship chronometer that defined the location of a
vessel. Because of this, the Swiss chronometers were rated above all,
which travelled much more than the Swiss themselves.
Nevertheless,
there were even real legends of their accuracy that were popular among
sailors. One of those legends was the Ulysse Nardin master
chronometers. They were regularly awarded all kinds of medals for their
accuracy. In 1862 Nardin received the "Prize Medal" award at the London
Exhibition in the category of "complicated watches, pocket
chronometers". In 1867 the company received the "silver medal" award
for its new pocket chronometer with independent second hand. In 1873 it
received the "Progress Medal" award for new type of pocket chronometer
without external factory head. In 1893 it won the "gold medal" award at
the Chicago Universal Exhibition while in 1906 and 1909 it received the
same award in Milan and Buenos Aires respectively. Presently, it has a
total of 18 gold medals and more than 4000 awards for its chronometers.
In 1876 Ulysse was succeeded by his son Paul David Nardin, and
in 1922 his three grandchildren, Alfred, Gaston and Ernest transformed
the company into a joint stock company. The grandchildren continued on
the footsteps of their famous grandfather. Already in 1923 the Ernest
marine chronometer received the "first prize" award for the testing
devoted to the "Century Breguet". A 22-24 calibre (chronometer with two
second- hands and measurement precision of 1/10 seconds) that was
developed in 1935 won the "gold medal" awards at the World Exhibition
in Barcelona and New York.
Apart from the internal features of
Ulysse Nardin watches, the external decoration is also attractive.
Striving to become a luxury brand but also to become exclusive, in the
80s master Michel Vermo restored the cloisonné enamel technique that
was used in Arab countries and in Medieval China. This technique is so
complicated that it has no fakes. The main product of this technique
are the Jungle watches (only 18 in number) and Erotic watches (28
watches) of the Ulysse Nardin company on which animals or erotic
pictures inscribed using the cloisonné enamel technique are in motion.
Some
works of Ulysse Nardin Company that are recorded in the "Guinness Book
of World Records" are worth talking about. In 1983 Rolf Schnyder
purchased the impoverished (thanks to the emergence of quartz watches)
Ulysse Nardin company and decided to return its past glory of accurate
mechanical chronometer and brought a talented watchmaker, Ludwig
Oechslin. Having decided to revolutionanize the watch industry, Ludwig
Oechslin developed a clock that never existed, "trilogy of time". The
first was the wrist astrolabium called Astrolabium Galileo Galilei. It
can be used to calculate the time of sunrise, sunset, moonrise and
moonset and to calculate the length of day and night, solstice and
equinox days and the position of zodiacal signs in the sky. Namely
these watches made it into the "Guinness Book of World Records" in
1998. They have transparent back covers which make it possible to see
the work of the entire mechanism developed by Oechslin on an ordinary
calculator. Planetarium Copernicus also made it into the Records due to
the solar system in them. Part of these watches was released in few
series of 65 copies with the dial made of meteorite. In the other
watches, "Trilogy of time" and "Tellurium Johannes Kepler", there is
cloisonné enamel map of the Northern Hemisphere with the centre on the
North Pole (there is also a model with that of the Southern Hemisphere).
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