Independents

A very rare Urwerk 101: the Star Diamond

 

With this post, I propose you a journey back to the first years of Urwerk.

Yesterday, I was very happy to see a very rare Urwerk 101.  We often forget it but yes, at the beginning of the story of Urwerk, some watches were adapted to be worn by ladies or at least to embody a more precious and delicate style. Obviously the 101 and 102 cases, due to their shapes (and I don't forget the first 103) gave the opportunity to the engraver to work on  quite large surfaces to draw patterns. These cases had a huge potential of customization.

I must confess I was totally seduced by this 101.

First of all, for these who don't know perfectly Urwerk, the easiest way to make the difference between the 101 and the 102 is the lugs. Classic 2 lugs=101, 4 lugs case=102. With the 101, I always had the feeling to be in front of the Metropolis robot head... especially with the first 101 when it was produced in YG (the 102 was using a stainless-steel case while the 101 which were produced with gold cases).

Anyway, let's come back to this rare 101.

Do you notice the superb pattern on the WG case? The diamonds are almost invisible... they only bring the touch of additional light. They seem to be stars in the sky. The pattern by itself plays the key role, not the diamonds.

In this poetic context, the wandering hours system is the perfect time display, a quite and slow window moving from the left to the right...

The engraved pattern creates subtle shades of light. If the "classic" 101 case acts like a mirror due to its polished surface, we have here an opposite feeling:

All Martin Frei's talent can be observed when we turn over the watch. Look at the nice way to integrate the strap into the overall design. It is not a "world premiere" of course. But it works perfectly with the 101 case. Moreover, the shape of the part on the caseback improves the comfort and the wearability of the watch.

On Yacine's wrist:

This watch is at the same time very elegant and very original. It is one of the most fascinating Ladies' watch I've ever seen. Ladies' watch? Hum... not sure. For me this 101 is a precious version which can be worn by ladies and men. The stingray strap enhances its female side but if you can imagine it with a leather strap, the "unisex" feature may become more obvious. The engraver who worked on this piece is Jean-Vincent Huguenin who would collaborate later on other Urwerk pieces like the 103 or the 202. But that's a different story.

More than creating appropriate "stands" for the diamonds, the pattern gives a new dimension to the 101: the 3rd one. Can you imagine a 3D kaleidoscope? You get it with this 101 star Diamond.

Many times, daring timepieces may look very quickly old-fashioned. This is not the case here. The engraving work gave to the 101 a timeless decoration which is quite surprising if we think about it. I don't have a precise date of creation of this watch but we are talking about the first years of the company. Believe me, many years later, this watch hasn't lost its charm and its power of seduction.

If I remember well, there was another engraved 101 based on the YG case with an other pattern.

I take advantage of this post to show you 2 pics of another very rare Urwerk: the 102 with "blue dial". Actually it is not the usual meaning of the word "dial". The blue zone is the area on which the hours window moves. Minutes can be read thanks to the very shy indexes on the lower flange and on the upper curve.

As you can see it, the case provides a large surface available for an engraving work.

The 102 features a stainless-steel case as I said before.

This 102 is clearly an unusual bird. It looks vintage and futuristic at the same time... like a Star-Trek movie from the 70s or the 80s!

Again, you can notice the different lugs if you compare this watch with the Star Diamond. 

We may think that the 101 was the first Urwerk ever produced. The first prototype was of course the 101. But thanks to the sales figures of the 102 Steel, Urwerk could produce after the 101 with gold cases. It is the reason why the 101 and the 102 have a combined history. And  they share in common the same movement.

A blue version existed also with the 101. At the end, Urwerk is a bit like Lange: they used the blue colour at the beginning of the brand and sadly, haven't used it anymore for many year. I would be very happy to see this colour back  on a contemporary Urwerk watch.

When we compare these first watches with the current catalogue, we feel all the evolution of Urwerk from 1997, when the 101 and 102 were unveiled. But the DNA remains the same and the wandering hours are the common thread even if Urwerk has explored several technical approaches to play with such complication.

I would like to thank Yacine and the Urwerk team for the warm welcome in Geneva. I enjoyed a lot to visit these first years of the brand. A brand doesn't need to have a 200 years history to have its own museum!

Fx
 
This message has been edited by foversta on 2012-11-03 16:40:03 This message has been edited by MTF on 2012-11-04 09:09:18

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