During a recent visit to the Omega Museum in Biel, Switzerland I was treated to a special showing and demonstration. A Louis Brandt minute repeater, 18k gold wristwatch. This piece is about 35mm, +/-. and runs beautifully, The chiming mechanism produces beautiful quality sound to this day. Louis Brandt & Frère were granted Swiss patent number 7832 on December 30th, 1893 for this carillon repeating system. This particular piece was submitted for the 'Hors Conours" competition in 1889, Paris France.

Here Omega Master Watchmaker David Julmy opens the watch to give us a demonstration.



For those that would like to get an idea of the sound, you can go to the below Omega link and scroll down to listen to a Louis Brandt movement of the same era
http://www.omegamuseum.com/first-100-years

 

I was looking for some additional research on this watch and found this:

From Audemars Piguet history:

"AP produced wristwatches as early as 1893 as one-off pieces. One of them, probably the first ever wrist minuterepeater, originated as a commission from Louis Brandt. "

http://shop.joseph-watches.com/jose...rmat=popup.html&page_id=ap&-token=brand&-find

From Omega history:

"But size did not prevent exclusive watchmaking, such as the 1892 minute-repeating wristwatch, developed in cooperation with Audemars Piguet, and probably the first of its kind."

http://shop.joseph-watches.com/joseph/members/FMPro?-db=joseph_archive.fp5&-format=branddetail.html&-lay=web&-sortfield=titel_initial&kategorie=brand info&-max=500&-recid=12592978&-find=

A little bit of cooperation between Audemars Piguet and Louis Brandt & Cie in the late 1800's?
gatorcpa

 

AudeBrandt Pi Omega.
gatorcpa

Edit - I found this pocketwatch that apparently has the same movement:

http://www.lacotedesmontres.com/Enchere-No_56603.htm

 

Just found this on another forum:



Evidence of the collaboration from the AP side,
gatorcpa

 

Note that this watch bares the the engraved initials of the original private owner

 

Got ya. I couldn't see what was engraved on the back of the watch. If these were actually sold to the (extremely wealthy) public, then it may very well be the first dedicated men's wristwatch in serial production, beating Brandt's 1902 Omega watch by 10 years!

Thanks for pointing that out.
gatorcpa