Christiaan van der Klaauw: Astronomical watches made in Holland
Astronomy and watches have historically always been closely linked. Time is linked to astronomy to begin with. The day is determined by the sun, the night by the moon. There are constellations in the solar system which determine a solar or a moon eclipse. And the tides are determined based on astronomy as well.
Above you see the "Planetarium" by CVDK (Christiaan van der Klaauw). This watch displays our solarsystem at 6 o'clock. This is the smallest mechanical display anyone ever made as far as I know. At noon, this watch shows you the day and month. The dial is made of Aventurine which looks like the stars in the sky with its blue color and white sprinkles.
Since this is all based on "mathematics" basically, it is possible to display the moonphase, the eclipses and the tides on a mechanical base. That is where the manufacture of Christiaan van der Klaauw has over 40 years of experience.
Christiaan van der Klaauw started in 1974 by making astronomical wallclocks. Above is an example of it.
The current collection encompasses wristwatches that are able to mechanically display the moonphases, the tides, the eclipses. Christiaan van der Klaauw and Franck Muller were great friends in their early days and when you look at the case and the lugs, you see something their watches have in common which is that the springbar is held by screws on the outer lug.
The early wristwatches meant a serious challenge to Christiaan van der Klaauw. To make his prototypes, I was told a truly funny story. Christiaan took a piece of paper and painted the look of his dial on it and then put that into his early prototypes.
Above is an early prototype timepiece. The dial still looks very rudimentary. From these humble beginnings, it was quite impressive to see that the manufacture has become a full manufacture able to produce very high level timepieces with amazing complications.
Take a look at the above video showing you the display of the tides.
Above is the Perpetual Calendar of CVDK which I cannot find on their homepage currently. Very classy and simple looks with the guilloche pattern on the dial.
The above "Orion" displays the Zodiac sign. This is the most affordable piece of the CVDK collection currently.
This was my first visit with CVDK, but not my first visit of a Dutch watchmanufacture as I have been to the Groenefelds before. The watches of CVDK are captivating and very interesting because they are different from everything you know. I am sure, this was not my last visit.
Check here for more information about CVDK.