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BaselWorld 2016: AHCI Master Paul Gerber develops The Frog - a bionic timepiece for Sarcar

AHCI watchmaker Paul Gerber, creator of the most complicated wristwatch in the world, surpised me with a very emotional, funny and entertaining 'bionic' complication he had developed for Geneva-based watch and jewellery house Sarcar: a charming timepiece called The Frog, an elaborate jumping hours complication indicating time by a bio-mimitic frog which jumps just like its natural counterpart. At the center of the watch sits a dragonfly on a bouquet of seeroses, indicating the minutes, with its wings vibrating such that you wonder where it will fly to.



Truth to be told he did not only surpise me, but also Sarcar themselves... Paul Gerber caught up with me up during hectic BaselWorld and whisked me away to the Sarcar booth. Luckily (for me ;-) ) he had some adjustments to finish on the watch, allowing me to take a closed look into the naked movement.



A little bit of background: Sarcar is a brand, which I guess, has rarely (if ever) been discussed here at PuristSPro.com. The brand, based in Vésenaz, a suburb to Geneva, is a decidedly jewellery-oriented ultra-luxe watch manufacturer that highlights the fascination of handicrafts like gem-setting, marquettry, enamelling, guillochage and the like, often through including a mobile element in its watches. Below are a few examples:



Without going into much detail, but a few words as the top line:

• Left, you find 'The Goldfish', Paul Gerber's first development for the brand: the goldfish can be activated by a special mechanism to ‘swim’ towards and under the finely sculptured Emerald-set lotus leaves, ‘peeping’ from under the leaves or ‘swimming’ out with its roving diamond eyes, a further unique feature that is so scintillating, proving an illusionary conception that the goldfish is ‘blinking’ its eyes as it swims.
• Right to it 'The Fancy Hours', where each hour-marker is covered by a diamond set roman number, except for the 12 o’clock hour-marker which is still represented by a rotating 0.50 carat solitaire diamond. Following the movement of the wrist, each hour-marker rotates, giving this carrousel the deserved name of Fancy Hours. 
• Second from right comes 'The Twist'. The innovative brilliance of this model lies in the technical magic of making a brilliant cut diamond dance freely in such a way as to reveal its multiple sparkling facets.
• Finally, the 'Le Magic World' with four rotating décors - the brand's signature - which are adorned with four precious stones: a diamond, a sapphire, an emerald and a ruby. The originality lies in the fact that each stone “conceals” three other stones. Which means that by spinning in an entirely random manner, it reveals another. To see them in action, all one needs to do is simply wear the watch and allow the stone to spin in time with wrist movements. The effect is simple but stunning.

Sarcar maintains a rudimentary website, but still worth visiting to learn more about the history and the essence of this (to us) 'under the radar' brand: www.sarcar.ch

Back to the watch: What is it? The Frog is a jumping hours watch, but a very, very unique one. The frog, a small piece of jewellery art itself, doubles as the hours hand, with 12 indications for the hours, just like rings expanding after a droplet touches a still water surface (each of which, is filled with luminous material):

Looking at the frog, one cannot stop marvelling about this masterpiece: this alone is a feat to realise if you consider the weight and the resultant physical forces to be mastered in order to make such a mechanism work: this is not your usual jumping hours disk!

A centrally mounted dragonfly, with natural-look resonating wings, indicates the minutes:

For the mechanical implementation Paul Gerber needed to rework the base movement considerably and expand it:

As experienced watch collectors might have already noticed, the base movement is a very tiny Piguet-based automatic calibre Frédéric Piguet FP. Ca. 615 (note, the images still show a (fully working) prototype. The movement hoder ring features 12 large holes. This has nothing to do with the mechanism, it is just an artifact from another Sarcar watch):

At the 12 o'clock position of the movement you'll notice a well visible wheel which connects to the additional mechanism. This is a winding bridge which transfers energy from the winding rotor to the jumping hour mechanism. You'll guessed it perhaps: the jumping hours mechanism is a separate geartrain...

... with its own mainspring barrel. Acturally, as you can see, there are two, each of which very small with only 5.5mm in diameter (Paul told me that one would suffice by a very tight margins, but he wanted to play safe!)!

The jumping seconds mechanism is hidden on the dial side. Just so much about the details: the jumping hour hand frog has no connection to the going train of the base movement except a little finger on the minute wheel to initiate the frog's dance.

So, although this appears at first sight as a rather straightforward watch it is in fact not. However, Paul Gerber would not be true to his mischievous nature if he would be simply content with realising just that. 'Just a jump every hour, that's a bit boring', he told me. 'Instead, why not have some real action on the dial?'

The always humble and laid back master watchmaker delivered, twice: first, he constructed the jumping hour such that it jumps 13 times each hour: 12x to orbit the dial and one more jump to advance to the next hour. Second, he added a push-button into the crown to make the frog jump on demand (think: minute repeater): 'Well, I thought, if you own this watch you clearly want to demonstrate it, wouldn't you?'

Yes, I at least would! And here is the reason why:

Did you realise? The frog is not simply jumping, it is jumping precisely like a real frog would do: straining its muscles, leaping forward, volplaning and landing; and this for every hour jump - what a feat to approximate this on such a tiny, compact playing field like a watch movement!

In my book, this watch is a prime example of mechanical poetry, and it is only fitting that the mastermind behind it is nobody else than Paul Gerber! Congratualtions, Paul, and a heartfelt thanks to Sarcar for comissioning this piece!

Cheers,
Magnus