PRE-BASEL: The Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Deadbeat

The story in a second:

Jaquet Droz is the new kid on the Australian high-end luxury watch block, and the Grande Seconde Deadbeat is their take on an old-school complication.

Jaquet Droz is a newcomer to the Australian watch scene. Part of the Swatch Group family, they are primarily known here for their impressive automata and refined style. It is also a brand that seems to have played exceptionally well in Asian markets. So it makes sense, given our proximity to Asia, strong dollar and strong tourist sales, that Jaquet Droz makes a push into our markets.

Their latest model, the Grande Seconde Deadbeat, is an exemplary model for the brand (outside of their off-tap ridiculous automated birds). The Grande Seconde line is a pared-back, elegant design, one that speaks to eighteenth-century watchmaking of the sort that Jaquet Droz himself would be familiar with. Besides the offset time and date registers on a very handsome grand feu enamel dial, this watch is all about the seconds.

The  Grande Seconde Deadbeat features a very unusual complication. The seconds hand doesn’t move with the continuous sweep you’d expect from a mechanical movement, but rather ‘jumps’ every second. Just like a quartz watch. But don’t be fooled, there’s no battery to change on this guy.

The deadbeat second (AKA true-beat) complication might seem somewhat pointless these days, but in a pre-quartz world it was the height of precision timekeeping, allowing seconds to be measured in regular, precise intervals – very handy for medical and scientific applications.

While it remains to be seen if Jaquet Droz can carve itself out a slice of the very competitive Australian luxury watch pie, they’re certainly in a strong position with watches such as the Grande Seconde Deadbeat, which cleverly combines a niche complication with mainstream appeal.

The Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Deadbeat is limited to 88 pieces.