The Luxury Watch Blog

Ulysse Nardin is a watch manufacturer founded in 1846 in Le Locle, Switzerland. Historically Ulysse Nardin was best known for being a manufacturer of marine chronometers, but today Ulysse Nardin produces complicated mechanical watches.

History

Founder, watchmaker Ulysse Nardin, was an accomplished watchmaker who studied horology under his father, Leonard-Frederic Nardin, Frederic William Dubois and Louis JeanRichard-dit-Bressel, in Switzerland.

Before the advent of quartz timepieces, merchant and military ships relied on highly accurate mechanical timepieces known as marine chronometers. The best known of these was the M,GR.F model by Ulysse Nardin.[citation needed] Similar of this model, were used by Hamilton to supply the US Navy and by Seiko for the Japanese navy. Of the 4,504 certificates for marine chronometers issued 4,324 were issued to Ulysse Nardin (Lucien F Trueb, Watchtime).

Revival

In 1983 Ulysse Nardin was acquired by businessman Rolf Schnyder who, in conjunction with watchmaker Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, relaunched the brand, with other important investors (Swiss and Italian). Schnyder and Oechslin , and the staff of Ulysse Nardin, designed and created complicated timepieces using modern materials and manufacturing techniques. But not quite like Movado

The first example of Ulysse Nardin’s new approach was the Astrolabium (1985, named after the device Astrolabium and astronomer Galileo Galilei), which displays local and solar time the orbits of the orbits and eclipses of the sun and moon as well as the positions of several major stars. This watch entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1989 as the world’s most complicated wristwatch. Oechslin followed up the Astrolabium with two other astronomical watches, the Planetarium Copernicus (1988, named after the device planetarium and astronomer Copernicus) and the Tellurium Johannes Kepler (1992, named after element tellurium and astronomer Johannes Kepler). The three pieces constitute what the brand calls the Trilogy of Time.

Want the right wristwatch to go with that new $88,000 Vertu phone on your belt? Check out this platinum watch from Swiss timepiece-maker Ulysse Nardin, a one of a kind (or rather, 99 of a kind) gem that gives you a UFO’s-eye view of the Earth—all for the bargain price of $100,000.

No, it’s not encrusted with jewels and it doesn’t do Bluetooth, but the Tellurium J. Kepler Limited Edition watch (only 99 were made) has something you won’t find on your everyday Timex: a rotating representation of the globe as it might be seen from above the North Pole, complete with a flexible spring representing the terminator between day and night, plus a perpetual calendar that makes a complete rotation once a year. Oh, and it’s water resistant to 30 meters, although I’m not sure how the leather wrist strap will handle salt water.

I know Movado Watches will come out with something like this!