Historical background

For over a century, the greatest minds of the watchmaking profession looked at ways of making a completely transparent watch, but without success. Then, in February 1993, René Quinting, a young automotive engineer, decided to disregard the time-honoured conventions of watchmaking and struck out on his own. Assisted by two Swiss engineers – Willy Cleusix, an expert in structural design, and Norbert Perucchi, who developed the concept – he managed to make a completely transparent chronograph.

After seven years of research, the see-through watch was presented to the watchmaking industry, which immediately recognized the technical and aesthetic value of this pioneering achievement. It was the subject of many articles in the trade press.

In September 2000, the rapidly growing company was bought out by Pascal Berclaz, an electronics engineer and economist with a passion for Quinting, who had no hesitation in investing 2 million Swiss francs in the business. Fascinated by time and timekeeping, he has devoted himself to developing a range of high-tech Mystery Watches, whose purity and transparency would remind their wearers of humanity’s capacity for love.

The next priorities are to create a women’s model and an entirely mechanical watch.

Technology of the Mystery Watch

The manufacturing process is a great challenge for the firm, which has had to overcome a number of advanced technical problems. Almost all of the 230 individual parts and 26 sub-assemblies are manufactured specially and exclusively for this little marvel.

The heart of the watch consists of 11 sapphire crystals, which have been specially metallized and treated with an anti-reflection coating to render them virtually transparent. Some of the crystals are moving, others fixed. The moving crystals are in fact transparent wheels, each with a toothed outer rim and a central shaft. Each moving crystal, of which there are six, imparts motion to one of the watch’s six hands.

A highly complicated precision timepiece, made of top-quality materials and handcrafted at the firm’s Saint-Blaise workshop (Neuchâtel), the Quinting chronograph is an electrical-mechanical watch, with four motors located around the outside. The uniqueness of each watch is certified by an individual serial number, engraved on the back and also inside the watch, on the movement itself.

The Quinting firm is one of a small circle of watchmakers producing their own movements. All the parts of the Quinting movement, specially made for the Quinting watch, are assembled at the firm’s St-Blaise factory.

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