Valjoux 69

History: With its 23.40mm diameter, this small chronograph movement incorporates a column wheel and a horizontal clutch – a classical, well-known and visually pleasant architecture. It features 17 jewels and runs at 18,000 vibrations per hour and it can store some 38 hours of power reserve.

Manufacturer: Valjoux (for Vallée de Joux, "Joux Valley") is a Swiss manufacturer of mechanical watch movements. It is known primarily for chronograph ébauche movements that are used in a number of mid- to high-range mechanical watches: The company has been a part of ETA for a number of years and is a member of the Swatch Group.

Valjoux SA was founded in 1901 by the brothers John and Charles Reymond in Les Bioux and until 1929 operated under the name "Reymond Frères SA". The company specialized on chronograph movements. In 1910 it moved to a factory building maintained by the municipality of Les Bioux. The company's famous column wheel chronograph movement, Calibre 22, debuted in 1914 and lasted in production for sixty years. But it was larger than desirable for wrist watch use. The military, involved in the First World War, required reliable bracelet chronographs. Thereafter the 13-ligne chronograph Calibre 23 (diameter 29.33 mm, height 5.85 mm) was developed, which in 1916 came to the production stage and soon ticked in the wristwatches of very different manufacturers (for instance Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, Rolex, and Vacheron Constantin). The production lasted nearly sixty years, and until 1974 about 125,000 ebauche movements of this type were made.