Looking at the tittle, why is it a "chronoSCOPE" but not a "chronoGRAPH"?
In my humble view, the definition Chronoscope is an OPTICAL device mean while the Chronograph is a GRAPHICAL device, both used to measure time. The word Chronoscope would be more precisely indicating a watch as we uses our eye sight to look at it. While the Chronograph refers to the Riussec's chronograph device which the it need to be mounted and in a resting state.
Look back the tittle again, who is Max Bill?
Max Bill is a swiss architect, artist, designer, teacher as well a politician...
His artwork displayed in many museums around the world. His other architectural work included an office building in Germany, a radio studio in Zurich and a bridge in eastern Switzerland. His biggest sculptures are on display in Switzerland, Germany and Israel.
He was a dedicated anti-fascist who had hidden refugees and helped Italian partisans. He was also one of the artist signed the first European artists’ protest against the Vietnam War that appeared in the New York Times. Max Bill was watched by the Swiss National Security for over 50 years. Max Bill died at 85 year 1994...
too much history there hope you don't get bored...back to the watch's ....story
The ancestor of this watch is the Junghans kitchen clock designed by Max Bill during 1950's and subsequently the design is used in the wrist watches as well at 1960's, during then the watches is only a very simple 3 watch. At year 1997, Junghans had already reached the peak of the Radio Control watches, they had choose to revive the 60's Max Bill because of the strong heritage and the Bauhaus design. The following is the image publish by the design team during year 1997: the Handwinding model with 34mm case size.
The "Chronoscope" is the new addition during the 1997 revival of Max Bill collection, it was not in the original design of Max Bill, the design had expanded to the Chronoscope from the 3 hand watch, this Chronoscope design had as well gained approval from the son of Max Bill, Jakob Bill with blessing, he mentioned that he is certain that his father would have welcomed the Chronosocpe as an innovation that fit perfectly.
So that is all for the storieS..
First look at the watch....
Look closer.....please take note the crown is in the condition of being pulled out throughout the photo taking session to keep the ten ten + 34 position...(for someone new to the ten ten, meaning the hands had been set to timing of 10:10:35, which normally people thought it is to show the "smiling face" , which is also the golden ratio where the hour,minutes and second hand divided the dial 1:1:1 proportionally.)
Even though it is a chronograph, but the dial is just crispy clean, the silver colored dial has two sub dial, the sub minute and sub hour for the stopwatch function, it does not consist a reference second hand (which I think it had amplified the "bauhaus" element within it where it is not practical for us to check our time up to the precision of second, while if we wanted to trace up to second, we could use the chrono function, what a "form follows function")
comes with a date function at 3'o clock window that was not in the original design as well, which in the picture is showing the special number "4", Junghans had reproduced these date wheel in house at Schramberg so that it captures one of the most important element of Max Bill design; the font.
At 6'o clock position the word "MADE IN GERMANY" is printed, emphasizing the origins of the brand, the luminous dot had located beside "IN", which differs from the original design: the word is in continual form,printed on the outside of the minutes track.
Looking the At 9'o clock position, the brand had put Max Bill design more forward than their brand, just a simple "JUNGHANS CHRONOSCOPE" is printed, the Eight Pointed Star of Junghans logo is not found on the dial. The hands are coated with Super-Luminova and there're luminous dotted at 12,3,6,9 position. The hands are well synchronised with the tip of the hour hand touching the edge of the hour marker and length of the minute hand is just long enough to the edge of the minute marker.
The watch is measured 40mm case size, it wear larger than other 40mm watch due the to the nearly non exist bezel and the dome shaped plexiglass. Why? why is it plexiglass? reason being Junghans wanted to keep the watch as close to the original design as possible, by putting a sapphire on it would make it loses the vintage feel of it, Panerai had put the plexiglass on PAM372, PAM522 and PAM521 due to the same reason....
a simple comparison of plexiglass vs sapphire on a speedmaster: which is plexi? which is sapphire?
The one on left with the "milky ring" is the Speedmaster 35735000 , while the one without on the right is the Speedmaster 35705000.
the curvature and the crystal clear view through the plexiglass added the "WoW" effect of the watch.
Look at the pusher and the crown, the stem of the pusher pusher is rather thinner and overall size is smaller compared to the crown, the pusher shape always make people think of the the IWC Portuguese, but IWC sized the pusher proportionally to the crown size in their chrono. Once, the crown is not signed with the Junghans logo, it remain just as plain as the buckle of the calf strap which nowadays, hardly you can see any watch brand choose not to put a signed buckle on their original strap.
The Max Bill watches comes with a very short lug and the lugs is well polished without pointy edge (unlike the Meister collection), from the picture you could see that the nearly non exist bezel is due to the 2 piece case construction, the second piece of the casing is actually holding the domed plexiglass. The hands as well, is slightly curved down, that is not the illusion created by the plexiglass.
The watch is powered by the proven reliable finely polished ETA 7750 (which referred as J880.2) with the reference second hand taken away which official information mentioned this had slightly added 2 hours to the power reserve, ALL Max Bill watches has a solid back case with, "ALL STAINLESS STEEL, JUNGHANS GERMANY, model number and serial number", touched up by the Signature of Max Bill. **movement picture taken from WUS
Overally, the Max Bill Chronoscope is a very low profile classic watch yet the Bauhaus element within it make it stands out an appear very modern, it is like a piece of art that comes with a true heritage and story rather than just a watch with a ETA 7750.
Lastly, a wrist shot....
Apologize for the poor grammar and hope you enjoyed the review and get poisoned 9 9
