For over a century, "Mystery" see-through clocks made with glass discs have had a special fascination. Omega produced a quartz watch with a transparent centre in 1981 but now there is a transparent chronograph, with no visible moving parts.

The Quinting watch is made by PBF Watches a small start-up company in Neuchâtel. Basically it is a scaled down version of the glass disc mystery clock but it uses 13 thin discs of sapphire with an anti-reflective coating. The four-motor quartz movement is hidden in the case rim. The watch has about 230 parts, only a handful are "off the shelf" items, the rest had to be commissioned from specialist suppliers.

The chronograph is unusual in that it has no continuous seconds display and the slender central hand is not the chronograph hand but a date indicator. The stepping motor of the time module rotates the disc holding the minute hand in two-second steps. This disc is linked by motion work to the hour disc with is in turn linked to the disc carrying the slender central hand which is the date indicator. This points very precisely to the date and can thus indicate am and pm. Noon is the spot associated with each number. The other 3 motors drive the subsidiary dials for the chronograph functions, recording seconds, minutes and up to 12 hours.

Despite the high torque required to move the sapphire the small battery (Maxell 397 SR726SW) is said to last three years, even if the chronograph is use for 30 minutes a day. The battery is placed on edge in a special compartment in the case ring. The watch is water resistant to 50m.

A great deal of attention has been paid to quality features in the Quinting chronograph which retails at from SwF13,820 in steel and leather to SwF33K in gold with a bracelet. The company are interested in finding a UK agent.

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