![]() This element of vintage, and vintage-inspired, chronographs is generally held to have been to do with billing intervals for long-distance calls, or alternatively, for timing payphone calls, where a single coin would get you three minutes of talk time the latter is the reason cited by Montblanc. On the right, we have in the minutes sub-dial, elongated markers at three, six, and nine minutes. And while Minerva is now fully integrated into Montblanc, this doesn't mean its identity has been lost – not only are the current movements in a direct lineage of design and execution from the originals, they also still carry the engraving, "Minerva Villeret." While you'll certainly see the use of up-to-date machinery where it's necessary for greater reliability and precision, as well as to fulfill the expectations modern luxury watch clients have in terms of durability and reliability, you'll also see a great deal of hand-work at today's Minerva, using techniques which have changed very little since Minerva became a true manufacture in the early 20th century. The basic movement architecture of today's Minerva chronograph movements is derived directly from its chronograph pocket watch and wristwatch movements, which were laid out by Minerva's constructors in the 1920s and 1930s, and so the techniques used to assemble and finish them are also often quite charmingly old-fashioned as well (and, as well, inherently inconsistent with more time-and-cost efficient modern methods, which means inherently limited production). ![]() Watchmaking at the Minerva manufacture is of necessity still rather an old-fashioned enterprise, which has to do with the nature of the movements made there. ![]() Ironically, for those who obsess over in-house movements, Minerva itself didn't start as a manufacture, but evolved into one – it began as an établisseur (a company that receives parts from specialist workshops, performs final assembly, and sends completed watches to retailers) in 1858, and only gradually became a vertically integrated maker of its own movements and watches, which rather parallels Montblanc's evolution as a watchmaker as well. This is especially the case for Montblanc watches that house movements coming out of the Institut Minerva de Recherche en Haute Horlogerie – Minerva, in short, which is probably best known to collectors as a maker of very fine chronographs and chronograph movements, beginning in the 1920s. ![]() Although to some, Montblanc's history as a pen manufacturer continues to overshadow its identity as a maker of wristwatches, the company's wristwatches have show such an impressive level of commitment and craft in the last decade, that even some holdouts are beginning to allow that whatever you may think of the name on the dial, you have to take the watchmaking seriously. ![]()
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