An exceptional watch in homage to Notre-Dame de Paris

Surprisingly, it took a German watch brand to pay homage to the rebirth of Notre-Dame de Paris… MeisterSinger, a house founded in 2001 by Manfred Brassler in Munster, specialized in single-hand models, displaying the time via a single needle as before the appearance of the second needle, at the dawn of the 18th century.

It is a limited edition of only 70 copies and priced at €4,599 that the brand is offering a few weeks before the resurrection of Notre-Dame. A 43 mm diameter steel creation recently unveiled in Paris during the We love watches show, and on sale on the Ocarat.com website or in the Ochrono boutique, in Paris Its incredible dial reproduces one of the rosettes identically of the cathedral. A real challenge on the scale of a watch, which required delicately milling the center, a dark blue background allowing the Gothic lace to stand out.

But the homage to Notre-Dame-de-Paris does not stop there: its automatic movement based on Sellita SW200, equipped with 38 hours of power reserve, also integrates a striking module developed by MeisterSinger. Accumulating energy for 60 minutes, the sound fork located behind the dial marks each new hour with what we call in watchmaking terms a chime as it passes. A function which, if discretion is required, for example during mass, can be deactivated using the pusher located above the crown. But how can you tell the time on such a watch? It's all in all quite simple: the ivory-colored rim of the dial is here divided into 144 5-minute segments towards which the red-tipped hand points. Or how to be on time to the nearest five minutes… On the back of the case, we find an engraving of the rosette on the transparent glass back, associated with the serial number of the piece.