Fixed Escapements, Carousels and Tourbillons

Translated into English for the first time, Fixed Escapements, Carousels and Tourbillons is a short technical essay by Marius Favre, a working Geneva watchmaker and chronometer régleur. It was originally published in two parts in the Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie in 1905–1906—the leading French-language Swiss horological trade journal of the period—and has remained inaccessible to English-language readers for more than a century.

Favre—proprietor of Marius Favre & Co. in Geneva and a successful entrant at the Geneva Observatory timing trials—wrote at the high tide of horological ambition, when the Breguet tourbillon and the newer Bonniksen carousel were the two most prestigious answers to the problem of positional rate. He sets the three approaches—conventional fixed escapements, carousels, and tourbillons—side by side, draws on published Observatory data, and argues a contrarian position: that in the trial results of his day, the simpler fixed escapement was holding its own against the rotating prestige pieces. Whether or not the reader agrees, it is a fascinating window into the live debate inside the Swiss trade at the moment the tourbillon’s reputation was being made.

A primary-source pamphlet of real historical interest, recommended for collectors of high-complication watches and for anyone interested in how Swiss watchmakers themselves talked about the tourbillon when it was still a working question rather than a settled icon.