El Primero is a suitable name for not only the first automatic chronograph but the first integrated column wheel chronograph. Oscillating at 36,000 alternations/hour, the Zenith El Primero was a high frequency automatic intergrated column wheel chronograph movement able to measure short time intervals to a tenth of a second, an unsurpassed world record.ĭuring the quartz crisis, Zenith became one of the brands Rolex bought calibers from for their chronographs because of their quality and accuracy. In 1969, the Zenith company won renown for introducing the world's first automatic chronograph movement, the Zenith El Primero. It is said that one night after Georges Favre Jacot finished a movement he considered almost perfection, he went out and looked at the stars and he felt the cosmos almost speak to him, he saw the gigantic constellation turning around the Pole star similar in the complexity to the movements of the pivots and the wheels on their axes, he decided then to call his new Zenith movement and its manufacture after the word that designates the highest point in the universe, ZENITH, the star was adopted as a brand symbol as it is still today.īy the time Jacot retired in 1929, Zenith had made watch history, winning grand prix medals for timekeeping precision at international expositions in Geneva, Paris, Barcelona, and Neuchatel. It’s refreshing to strap on a 37 mm chronograph and still feel massive wrist presence, which is accomplished here by the depth of the faded blue dial and the exceptionally bright polishing of the stainless-steel case.Zenith watches was founded in 1865 by Georges Favre-Jacot, who, at the young age of 22, was one of the first watchmakers to understand the importance of the principle of interchangeable parts. However, that might have tipped the colorway a little too far toward the Stars-n-Stripes.Īnyone who has put on one of these chronographs knows how comfortable they are-they regularly trounce Speedmasters and even Daytonas for wearability on smaller and larger wrists alike. A fellow collector commented that he’d have preferred that the hands on the totalizing subdials at 3- and 6-o’clock matched the red and white chrono hand, as this is a common way to group the stop-watch information. The red and white stripes of the chrono seconds hand are certainly a nod to the flag of the USA, but with only the date wheel text and the strap stitches in red, there’s just enough of a tie in to make the design hold together without clobbering us with patriotism. The effect is fumé-esque and quite striking. Zenith’s blue dials were traditionally not given any vignetting effect, but on the Liberty Revival we have a rather striking fade to darker blue at the edges of the dial. The greatest difference, of course, is the colorway. The Liberty Revival watch also uses a sapphire box crystal on the front, which most collectors of vintage-inspired recreations accept as a great alternative to an acrylic crystal, because you get all the fun distortions and vintage vibes with greater clarity and durability. It wasn’t until the 1990s, for example, that Zenith included a sapphire caseback on the El Primero (a common nod to the massive uptick in mechanical watch fanaticism of that decade). 400’s 50-hour power reserve and 5 atm of water resistance aren’t anything to write home about, though these aren’t uncommon specs for vintage-inspired chronographs (including the water-fearing Speedmaster and the Rolex Daytona with its modest 10 atm of water resistance).īeyond the case and movement, the Chronomaster Revival Liberty begins to deviate from vintage specs. The Caliber 400 El Primero movement is, of course, a modern machine, but the 400 remains faithful in being an in-house automatic mechanical chronograph that is more an evolution of-rather than a replacement for-the original 3019 PHC integrated auto-winding chronograph of 1969. The white subdials here give the Liberty a distinctly vintage layout that you won’t see on many modern El Primeros, and sometimes we hear this colorway called a “blue panda.” The dial here has many deviations from the original blue-dial El Primeros, but the fact that the sub-dials do not overlap on the Liberty Revival (as they do on so many later El Primeros) is a direct reference to the A384 of 1969.
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