Horological Meandering

SJX
[Purist]
8540

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Carillon vs. grande sonnerie

The GP Opera watches and the Genghis Khan are carillons - they have 3 gongs and they strike the Westminster chimes on the hour; all use a similar Claret base movement. So these are not grande sonneries as they cannot chime the time as it passes.

In contrast, the AP grande sonnerie carillon strikes the time as it passes with 3 gongs, hence the name. It is in essence a 3 gong grande sonnerie.

Finally, the Gerald Genta grande sonnerie with Wesminster carillon does all of the above. It strikes the time as it passes on 4 gongs, and the Wesminster tune on the hour. Needless to say, the Genta is the most expensive, listing at over a million francs. In comparison, the other watches mentioned here cost a palty 400,000-600,000 francs.

Therefore the only companies that make a grande sonnerie with carillon are AP and Genta, while Claret is the only supplier of Wesminster carillon movements which are found in GP and UN.

- SJX

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