Montblanc

deBalzac
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Minerva

Minerva was an old factory with old and worn production equipment. They needed new capital to upgrade the factory and to develop new models, this was the main reason for the sale to Emilio Gnutti.

The Italians turned Minerva to a very expensive, high end brand. A watch with a simple handwound movement in steel costed more than a similar Patek Philippe in gold! With Montblanc and Richemont the quality is even higher. You can of course compare the Minerva’s from the 90’s with the Montblanc Villeret Edition, but when you do, don’t forget that the Minerva Pythagore costed $1200 new in 1999. The finish on the movements could have been better, but for what you paid, the quality was not bad!

My watchmaker sold about 25 Minerva Pythagores in the 90’s, he newer got any complaints about the quality, and he got most of the watches back for service, after 5-6 years. He told me that he was a bit disappointed when he opened up the Pythagore for the first time and saw the unfinished dial side of the movement, but he didn’t find any unnormal wear, only the gaskets and service parts were changed. If the quality was low, I think I would have noticed that after nine years of regular use. (For me a low quality movement is what you find in a cheap Chinese made watch, or the awful EB movements you found in Swiss low end watches in the early 70’s.)

Montblanc have a deep respect for the Minerva history and I’m pleased that they also will support and service old Minerva watches.

Minerva made several watches with NOS movements. The Anniversary watch was made to celebrate the 140^th anniversary for Minerva in 1998, and they decided to make 140 pieces of the watch. The Anniversary used a NOS Minerva calibre 17-22 movement made between 1921 and 1942, but Minerva only had 134 ebauches. This is what Jean-Jacques Frey said about the six “missing” movements:

"These Six are bit special. Indeed we had not 140 blank movements for the series, but 134. I knew from the beginning that the six missing will use the 17-22 movement, not blank, but already assembled AND decorated. This is the difference from the "standard" model you are used to. Instead of Geneva stripes and rhodinated, these older movements show a decor called 'filets", my present "decor maker" assured me it was made using ivory. This decor is no longer available. They were then silvered which is not good as silver gets tarnished with age. So the movement-blank will have to be cleaned and replated. As this is an ancient execution of decor, rhodinating did not exist then, the rhodium coating of movements started in the mid-sixties only. And as silver-plating will get again tarnished, the choice becomes gold-plating. Also, these six old movements show an interesting feature: a Swan Neck spring on the balance bridge."

I read ei8htohm's review again, this is the conclusion in the addendum to the review:

“The thesis and tone of this review was in some ways the result of my own disillusionment upon having my misconceptions about the quality of Minerva's movements refuted by the evidence of seeing a disassembled movement firsthand. While I do not believe my previous conception of the fineness or quality of Minerva's movements was drastically different from that shared by other watch enthusiasts based on my many discussions with others both online and off, it was perhaps unfair of me to assume that my own perceptions were representative of watch enthusiasts at large and hence constituted a "mythology".

The Minerva cal. 48 powered Pythagore was of course one of the most (if not the most) affordable handwind watches available with an in-house manufactured movement at that time. I believe that the Minerva Pythagore offered an honest value for the money, particularly when compared with the rest of the watch market.”

Best regards

Livius