Louis
Cottier A Watchmaking Genius Ahead of his Time by Osvaldo Patrizzi
It was in
1950 that Cottier invented and realized what many people consider
one of the most practical innovations of modern horology: the
World Time system with two crowns. In addition to a greater security
and precision in the choice and maintenance of the city of reference,
it offered greater protection against shocks and wear on the
bezel bearing the city names. The possibility of printing the
city names rather than incising them, thanks to the protective
glass, resulted in greater legibility.
Louis Cottier
invented and produced a few models of a watch with two dials
and only one movement for Patek Phillipe n 1954 . This solved
the problem of synchronizing the minute hand, a problem which
existed in twin-movement watches by other manu-facturers.
In 1958 he
made a linear hour watch for Patek Phillipe. This model eliminated
the use of hands and dial, as the passing time was indicated
within two graduated openings on the case, the hour and minute
indications being printed helicoidally on rollers. However, this
model remained a prototype and was never produced.
The Two Time
Zone movement with two or three hands, developed along with the
Patek Phillipe engineers, may be counted among his most suc-cessful
inventions. It was patented by the firm in 1959, no.340191 (see
Antiquorum’s November 1999 sale, lot 527).
After the creation of
the Prix de la Ville de Geneve in 1959, Louis Cottier was responsible, along
with Alfred Chapuis, for the organization of the famous exhibition “Montres & Bijoux”,
which was devoted to automata.
Ever active, brilliant
but modest despite the tre-mendous reputation he had earned in the world
of horology – at Patek, he was regarded as a sort of living legend – he
remained faithful to his work-bench, where he continued to invent fantastic
me-chanisms with his usual humility, mechanisms which even today provoke
our wonder and admi-ration.
Louis Cottier died on
September 16, 1966 in Ca-rouge. His production totaled 455 movements for
World Time pocket watches, wristwatches, and clocks, produced at an average
rate of 13 pieces per year. Only 179 of these are movements for pocket watches,
sold by various firms, of which 17 have a central cloisonne enamel dial.
One of the characteristics
that make Louis Cottier’s World Time timepieces recognizable, whatever
firm they were made for, is the unusual shape of the hands, particularly
the hour hand. They were enti-rely hand-made and therefore give a unique
cha-racter to each piece. This can be considered a sort of “signature” that
sets Cottier’s pieces apart from all others.
