Lemania: the Heart of Chronograph: History and Calibers Vallée de Joux Movement House — 321, 2310, 5100

The most famous watch in the world went to the Moon in 1969. The story has been told a thousand times. It is always told wrong. The name on that dial was Omega. The movement inside it - the caliber that NASA's engineers baked, froze, shook and starved of air until every rival failed, the mechanism that timed the fourteen-second burn that brought Apollo 13 home - was designed by a man almost nobody has heard of, in a workshop in a Swiss valley, for a company whose name is on no watch anywhere: Lemania. For most of the twentieth century, Lemania made the chronograph movements that the great houses put their names on. Omega. Breguet. Vacheron Constantin. And Patek Philippe - the most demanding watchmaker in the world - which built its chronographs on a Lemania caliber for seventy years, because it could not do better. This is the history of the company at the centre of the twentieth-century chronograph, and of the men who ran it: Alfred Lugrin, a farmer's son who founded the firm in 1884 and gave the valley its watchmaking school; and Albert Piguet, who designed the movement that went to the Moon and whose name appears on nothing. Inside: - The founding at L'Orient in 1884, and the valley where the hardest watchmaking in the world is done - The union with Omega in 1932 - the arrangement that made Lemania great and made it invisible - The CH 27 and the caliber 321: the NASA qualification, the Speedmaster, the Moon, and Apollo 13 - The 2310 and the aristocracy - how Patek Philippe used it, and what that verdict is worth - The military chronographs, and the watch a nation gave Winston Churchill in 1946 - The 5100: the toughest chronograph movement ever built, and the reason purists hated it - The crisis, Nouvelle Lemania, and the erasure of a name that was consumed rather than forgotten >With data graphics, quick-reference caliber cards, and honest myth-checks that separate the record from the legend. For collectors who have understood that the name on the dial tells you who sold you the watch - not who made it. Independent reference work. Not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Omega, Swatch Group, Breguet, Patek Philippe, or Vacheron Constantin.