« How Watch Movements Kept Getting Smaller »
Leading master watchmakers have always seen it as a challenge to develop more capable movements equipped with new functions. At the same time, there have been – and still are – repeated attempts to keep the dimensions of calibers to an absolute minimum. In 1929, for example, watchmakers succeeded in building a mechanical movement that weighs barely one gram and measures just 14 millimeters long, 4.8 millimeters wide and 3.4 millimeters high. But why would anyone need a caliber that at first glance looks like a barely functional miniature and demands an enormous manufacturing effort?
The First Mechanical Movements: Size Was No Concern
With the first mechanical movements, which appeared in Europe around the year 1300, size played only a minor role. The priorities were reliable operation and the most accurate timekeeping possible, and in this respect a mechanical movement was clearly superior to the sundials, water clocks and hourglasses known since antiquity. Incidentally, the first documented mention of a wheel clock dates from 1335; that particular clock was located in the chapel of the Visconti family palace in Milan.
Nine years later, the striking clock was invented, and in 1370 the first publicly visible striking clock was installed in the Tour de l'Horloge in Paris, a corner tower of the Palais de la Cité. Within just a few decades, the tower clock began its triumphant march across Europe and soon graced more and more church towers and public buildings.
Demand for Smaller Clocks Grows
While the first clocks had mostly been made by gunsmiths or locksmiths, a new trade quickly emerged, and the first watchmakers' guilds are documented as early as the middle of the 15th century. Yet the more reliable mechanical clocks in public spaces came to be taken for granted, the stronger the desire became to have a timepiece available not only on the church tower or at home, but also on the go, in any situation. The size of the movement naturally played a decisive role here: the smaller it was, the more easily the timepiece could be housed in a portable case.
The Renaissance: Movements Get Smaller
An early trend toward significantly smaller movements set in as far back as the Renaissance. Clocks were increasingly fitted with cases that could be designed almost any way the taste of the day demanded, and new inventions, tools and materials made it possible to produce much smaller movement parts. Particularly noteworthy are the use of brass, which allowed far smaller gear wheels to be made, and the adoption of the spring – already familiar from door locks – as the energy store in the movement. This freed clocks from their fixed location, and thanks to the combination of spring drive and a foliot balance, first achieved in 1504 by Peter Henlein of Nuremberg, they could ultimately be shrunk down to pocket size.
From Pocket Watch to Wristwatch
The wristwatch, which today dominates the small-watch segment by a wide margin, is around three centuries younger. The world's first wristwatch was made between 1810 and 1812 by Abraham Louis Breguet, and the relatively long two-year span between the order and the delivery of the watch hints at the technical challenges that had to be overcome.
Other manufactures that remain leaders to this day, such as Patek Philippe, also brought wristwatches to market over the course of the 19th century. Remarkably, the first wristwatches were intended primarily for women and were seen more as pieces of jewelry with the added function of telling time. Only at the beginning of the 20th century, in connection with their use in the military and in aviation, were men's watches increasingly made as wristwatches. Here, however, qualities such as ruggedness and good legibility even in difficult visibility conditions were in demand, rather than the smallest possible size.
So it comes as no surprise that the smallest mechanical movement was likewise developed for a women's wristwatch rather than a men's.
A Jewel of Watchmaking History: The World's Smallest Mechanical Movement
This milestone was achieved by the manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre, which first presented its Caliber 101 in 1929, having already surprised the public in 1903 with the thinnest movement ever made up to that point. The legendary mini Caliber 101 is still on the market today. It is regarded as a particularly demanding creation of haute horlogerie and remains unsurpassed as the world's smallest manual-winding movement. Only a handful of master watchmakers have the skills required to assemble a movement of such tiny dimensions from its 98 individual parts over the course of a week. That naturally affects production numbers as well.
Anyone wearing the Caliber 101 on their wrist can be sure they are wearing a truly exclusive watch, since only 50 pieces are made each year. Many wristwatches with this caliber are also elaborate works of jewelry, adorned with diamonds or other precious stones. A more recent example is the Jaeger-LeCoultre Joaillerie 101 Etrier, whose case is set with diamonds in a variety of cuts.
Is the Race for the Smallest Caliber Over?
Jaeger-LeCoultre's Caliber 101 is now more than 80 years old, and no even smaller successor has emerged. That is understandable, though, since miniaturizing movements ever further would make little sense.
The enormous technical effort involved in production would no longer be offset by any meaningful practical or aesthetic benefit. For reasons of legibility alone, there is little point in making wristwatches smaller and smaller. While it cannot be ruled out that an even smaller mechanical movement will come to market at some point, it is unlikely to be a pressing priority for any watchmaker.
After all, the enormous development and production costs of such a watch would likely be matched by only fairly limited sales potential. The position of the Caliber 101 in the world of mechanical wristwatches therefore does not appear to be under any immediate threat.
Thin Men's Watches Are in Demand
Wristwatches with a particularly thin case, on the other hand, are very much in demand. Among men's watches in particular, several models have established themselves in recent years, such as the Eliros Date from Maurice Lacroix or the Tangente from Nomos Glashütte. Other manufactures in the luxury watch segment also regularly introduce one or another especially thin model.
Many men appreciate a watch with bold proportions, but as a dress watch, a thin piece is often the better choice. It wears closer to the wrist and lets shirt and jacket cuffs slide over it more easily. When it comes to diameter, however, thin men's watches hardly differ from "thicker" ones – after all, nobody wants to give up a certain masculine presence and, above all, good legibility.
