Urban Jürgensen Reference 1741 PT
Swiss luxury watch brand Urban Jürgensen presents the new Reference 1741 in Platinum with perpetual calendar, leap year indicator, moon phase and central seconds.
Reference 1741 comes with a Grenage dial for the first time in more than 100 years and reintroduces the almost forgotten craft which is hardly used or even known today.
The Grenage dial features white gold Arabic appliques. The moon disk takes more than 20 different operations to create, and the result is a unique tiny wonder of classic workmanship which is rarely found in timepieces nowadays.
The Ref 1741 caliber is based on the Urban Jürgensen P4 In-house movement, enhanced with the QP functionality that has been augmented by introducing the leap year indication.
This perpetual calendar with moonphase watch has a 41mm case featuring the traditional Urban Jürgensen teardrop lugs. The elegant profile of convex and concave curves of the case consists of 3 main pieces; the middle-case with individually soldered teardrop lugs, the top bezel houses the domed sapphire crystal, and the screw back with a flat sapphire crystal.
Urban Jürgensen Reference 1741 PT Grenage Dial
Grenage dials were originated in the late 1800s. This dial making technique is rarely used these days as it requires such a delicate balance of skill, patience, and hours of concentration.
It is a distinctively handmade process dial by dial. Each dial begins with a plate of solid fine silver given ultra-fine engravings of numbers and markings. The engravings are hand filled with lacquer, and after hardening is diamond paper-polished to leave its residue in the grooves.
The grenage layer is then built step by step as a secret mix of silver, salts and other ingredients is hand-brushed onto the individual dial. By electrochemical reaction, the surface emerges as a beautiful pearled finish; a silvery frosty surface with unique depth and granularity.
Hands
Urban Jürgensen hands are handmade. The arms of the hands are cut from selected steel and hand finished to perfect shape and fit. Gold hands are made from solid gold.
After careful polishing with increasingly fine grain diamond paper, and mirror polishing by use of shape fitted secret types of dried wood, the arms are thermally blued to arrive at the specified Urban Jürgensen blue colour.
The eye of the hour hand is a concentrically diamond polished solid gold insert, held in place by the sheer accuracy of the fit. The arms are carefully riveted to the diamond polished solid gold centre canons.
Arabic Numeral Appliques
The White Gold Urban Jürgensen Arabic numeral appliques require two separate cutting processes, and are carefully hand polished cabochons and manually placed, they adopt an elegant cursive typography, typical of the 1930s.
Moon Disc
Each disc is made by hand from carefully selected and treated steel – thermally-blued and mirror-polished. Recesses for inlays are punched or etched into the steel, then pure gold (in powder form) is carefully placed into the cavities, and melted to create solid gold stars. The entire surface is re-polished and heat treated to create the famous urban blue colour before two solid gold moon discs are press fitted.
Teardrop Lugs
The teardrop lugs on Urban Jürgensen’s Ref 1140 time pieces have been individually forged, heat treated, hand polished and individually soldered on to the watch case in a way which makes the soldering line invisible for the naked eye.
The forging process requires between 5 and 8 cycles where little by little the final form of a paired tear drop set is forged into shape under the pressure of 50 tons. To prevent the lugs becoming brittle, it is necessary after each forging cycle to release the tension in the metal through a slow heat treatment at around 800 degrees with a cool off period.
The heat levels needed to solder the lugs to the case is close to the melting point of the used metal, and as such it is an extremely delicate process only mastered by experienced craftsmen. The entire process takes several days, and is rarely used nowadays due to the high costs of handcrafting.
Technical details
Model: Urban Jürgensen Reference 1741 PT
Movement
Urban Jürgensen P4 QP SC
Swiss Lever Escapement
Manual winding
Perpetual Calendar, day, date, month, moon phase, leap year
Hours, minutes, central seconds
Adjusted to temperature, isochronism in five (5) positions
Stop seconds
Twin barrels
Autonomy: 60 hours
Frequency: 21’600 V/h (3 Hz)
Twenty-four (24) jewels
Diameter: 32.00 mm
Thickness: 6.85 mm
Case
Platinum
41 mm Round 3-piece case, with a convex bezel
Individually soldered teardrop lugs
Domed sapphire crystal
Open back with flat sapphire crystal
Water resistant 3 ATM
Dial
Single piece solid silver handmade Grenage dial
Urban Jürgensen domed White Gold Arabic numerals
Hand lacquered engraved dial
Hands
Hand made in thermally blued steel and Yellow Gold
Click mounted diamond polished eye in Yellow Gold
Strap
Alligator skin
Length 115/75mm, width 21/16
Custom made sizes available on request
Semi-matt black, brown or blue
Other colours available on request
Buckle: Classic C-buckle in Platinum, stamped Urban Jürgensen. Folding buckle optional
