Breguet watches from Timepiece Trader

Breguet is a manufacturer of luxury watches, founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet in Paris in 1775. Breguet is one of the oldest surviving watch-making establishments and is the pioneer of numerous watch-making technologies.

Breguet watches are often easily recognized for their coin-edge cases, guilloché dials and blue pomme hands (often now referred to as 'Breguet hands').

Breguet is known for perfecting and inventing the tourbillon.  Even with today's advanced technology, the tourbillon can only be built by the most skilled watchmakers. Breguet began with the theory that the gravity of a pocket watch (that was almost always carried vertically) led to deviations in timekeeping. He wanted to rule out all differences of position with the tourbillon. Tourbillons counters the effects of gravity by mounting the escapement and balance wheel in a rotating cage, ostensibly in order to negate the effect of gravity when the timepiece (and thus the escapement) is rotated.

Other notable innovations from Breguet

• 1775-1780 Improved the automatic winding mechanism - his perpetual watch.
• 1783 Invented the gong for repeater watches (bells were used until then). Designed    Show More >>
  the apple-shaped 'Breguet' hands and 'Breguet numerals'. The hands still grace watch dials today.
• 1787 Adopted and improved the lever escapement. Abraham-Louis Breguet used it in its definitive form from 1814 (this form is still in use).
• 1793 Developed a small watch showing the equation of time.
• 1790 Invented the 'pare-chute' anti-shock device.
• 1794 Invented a retrograde display mechanism.
• 1795 Invented the Breguet spiral (flat spiral balance spring with overcoil).
• 1795 Invented the 'sympathetic' in which a clock rewinds and sets to time a detachable watch.
• 1799 Invented the 'tact' watch that could be read by feel in the pocket or the dark.
• 1801 Patented the tourbillon escapement, developed circa 1795.
• 1802 Invented the echappement naturel, a double-escape wheeled chronometer escapement that needed no oil.
• 1821 Developed the “inking” chronograph, in partnership with Frédérick Louis Fatton.