The Secret History Of The Quartz Chronometer Girard-Perregaux Laureato
The early history of Switzerland’s first certified quartz chronometer.
The Laureato is a well known watch, but with somewhat enigmatic origins.
The Laureato was born in 1975 and you might say it was a bit of a child of the quartz crisis. By 1975 it was clear that from a technical standpoint, mechanical horology was obsolete for most scenarios, with its only remaining advantages being rather niche features, such as the fact that a mechanical watch needs no batteries (which, depending on who you are, may actually be a big deal; when I was a kid in the 1970s and considering my first watch, I actually wanted a mechanical because I hated the idea of a battery going flat unexpectedly).
The original Laureato therefore eschewed the mechanical solutions preferred by other famous integrated bracelet luxury watches of its day, and chose to use a high precision quartz movement. Quartz had the additional advantages of being able to offer a high degree of precision while also being very thin, which was less of a challenge for a quartz movement than a mechanical, and to show it meant business, Girard-Perregaux launched the Laureato, not as “The Laureato” but rather as, simply, the Quartz Chronometer. There would have been, at the time, no need for any other name, since when the Laureato launched, there were no other quartz chronometers.
Today the Laureato is not only resolutely mechanical, with an in-house mechanical automatic movement; it’s also been used and is still being used by GP as a vehicle for complications, including Laureato versions of GP’s classic three bridges tourbillon. The origins of the Laureato however have been somewhat unclear, and over the years, I’ve seen various articles mention various sizes and various reference numbers; the sizes I’ve seen have ranged from as small as 26mm to as large as 36mm, or that there was only one model available at launch, with smaller models added later.
It occurred to me finally after many years that the obvious thing to do was double check with Girard-Perragaux, who shared images as well as specifications for the models launched in 1975.
Here’s what they said:
“The Laureato was first launched and produced in 1975. Three sizes were available at launch:
- 26mm, reference 4460
- 30mm, reference 4265
- 35mm, reference 4266
The model started out with two design options for each size, one in full steel, and another one with a two tone design on the case, and a bracelet with a strip of gold welded onto the bracelet.”
That’s a total of six models available at launch, according to Girard-Perregaux: three references in either steel or two-tone. GP went on to note, “The two-tone version was later made available also in full steel with the steel strip mirror finished, and the bracelet satin-finished,” and here I take the brand to mean that “two tone” refers not just to gold and steel, but also to the combination of satin and mirror finished steel.
Girard-Perregaux also pointed out that the design started out with the gold strip stopping at the case, but later models (no specific dates were given) had the gold strip extending all the way to the bezel.
Although the classic design has a Clous de Paris dial, stick hands, and baton indexes, there were apparently quite a plethora of other options. Girard-Perregaux says:
“There was a selection of dial options between yellow, white, black and blue as well as indexes options between, batons, roman numbers and diamonds and the guilloche Clous de Paris or not. However, we noticed the Clous de Paris dial versions were probably the ones with the highest production number since these are the models we come across the most. Unfortunately, our production archives are not specific enough to indicate how many units of each style were produced.”
This means that potentially, there are an absolutely tremendous number of quartz Laureatos out there. If you just take all the possible listed dial colors, indexes, and case sizes, you get 48 possible combinations, not including the fact that the dials could also be Clous de Paris or not. This seems incredible and my assumption is that not all combinations were actually manufactured, but you know, still.
The one remaining mystery – and it’s a biggie – is that most sources only mention one quartz movement used by GP in the Laureato watches at launch. That’s the GP caliber 705, which was for its time quite a fantastic movement – obviously, chronometer certified, with seven jewels and a trimmer condenser/rate trimmer for fine adjustment. The problem with respect to our story, is that it seems to be too big for the 26mm model at least, since the caliber 705 is an 11.5 ligne/25.94 diameter movement. Unfortunately, GP could not provide any further information on the use of any other movements. There’s a thread on WatchUSeek that discusses other vintage GP quartz calibers from the same period, which were developed from the caliber 350 (the first in-house GP quartz movement, introduced in 1971, and the first quartz movement that ran at the modern frequency of 32,768 Hz). That thread mentions a possible candidates: the caliber 360 at 17.2mm, and then in 1978, Europa Star says GP released the caliber 700 (I have been unable to confirm the date). Caliber 700 was 21.5mm in diameter, and Europa Star’s image shows it next to what looks like a 26mm Quartz Chronometer. It may be that the 26mm model was actually released later than 1975, or that the caliber 700 was available earlier than 1978; perhaps a reader can shed light on this question.
In any case, the sheer range of quartz chronometer models would seem to offer much scope for the collector. These models do not find their way into the catalogs of the usual auction houses, and the ones I have seen on a cursory search, often have damaged or non-functioning movements – and parts as you can imagine, are an issue. Still, they represent a fascinating part of the history of Swiss watchmaking in general, and the evolution of quartz precision wristwatches at Girard-Perregaux in particular – and there are still unanswered questions for us to dig into, with this unsung hero of early luxury quartz watches.