Patek Philippe Gondolo 5098 (5098P-001)

WORLDTEMPUS - 12 January 2012

The famous Geneva Seal just turned 125: it was on 30 November 1887, one year following it's officially decreed creation, that the first timepiece received the illustrious distinction. Another 1,250,000 timepieces would follow. After more than a century, the seal reached a point in its existence where evolution has become mandatory; if not, it may not keep up with the industry's most recent developments regarding manufacturing techniques and materials. Under these circumstances, inaction would lead toward a gradual, but certain, loss of the most important asset it possesses: the guarantee of excellence and origin in the manufacture of haute horlogerie pieces in the canton of Geneva.

The celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Geneva Seal was thus followed by the announcement of a set of new, tougher criteria with regard to the manufacture of timepieces by brands aiming to receive the certification. The three conditions and 12 criteria of the past have now evolved into a number of standards that will apply both to the mechanical movement and the outer casing that protects it from 2012 onward. The external appearance of the watch will now have to be taken into account as well as the manufacture of individual components. With the increased number of points of inspection along the manufacturing process, all operations comprising a complete watch now fall now under the scrutiny of a more systematic and tightened control process. Greater focus will also be placed upon geographical verification - in other words, the seal now checks to see if the assembly, setting and encasing is actually accomplished within the canton of Geneva.
Inspection of the complete watch is now an integral point in receiving the coveted hallmark. Another new feature is the "watch head" certification, a group of tests destined to measure the performance of each individual timepiece regarding water resistance, accuracy, functions and power reserve. These are all new parameters that until now were not considered by the Geneva Seal, but which will allow the hallmark to catch up with other similar and more recent certifications.
Other certifications
The existence of certifications other than the Geneva Seal is proof of a certain lack of consensus in this field. The compelling necessity of elite haute horlogerie brands to assure their international clienteles that that their watches and movements are manufactured according to the highest standards of quality has led to the creation of a number of independent certification entities and private seals looking to guarantee a set of manufacturing standards. Naturally, there is the already-famous Master Control 1000 Hours set up by Jaeger-LeCoultre, which is regulated by its own particular set of internal rules: this is a literal battery of tests that exceed the 360 hours demanded by C.O.S.C. while guaranteeing a daily rate of -1 to +6 seconds a day. Mainly due to the enthusiasm of retailer chain and watchmaker Wempe, new life was given to Glashutte's observatory, turning it into a certification laboratory using the DIN 8319 norm, which is quite similar to the ISO norm used by the C.O.S.C. A few years ago, on the other side of the border, the French reactivated the legendary seal of the Viper granted by the laboratories of the historic Besançon observatory. This is a seal that in the past competed in importance with those of the Geneva and Neuchâtel observatories in Switzerland and the Kew observatory in England; it subjected every serious marine chronometer to chronometric trials. Regardless of how tough these certifications of days gone by were, they are still not able to compare with the main ones active in Switzerland today.

C.O.S.C.
Founded in 1973, the C.O.S.C. (Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronometres) unified several independent laboratories and observatories created during the nineteenth century, which were responsible for measuring and certifying the accuracy of the most diverse timepieces. From this point on, the C.O.S.C. became responsible for guaranteeing the accuracy of all quartz or mechanical Swiss watches ambitioned enough to be called a chronometer. These tests, applied only to movements that are later encased by the manufacturers, demand an accuracy defined to be between -4 and +6 seconds a day under predefined conditions (for mechanical movements). The C.O.S.C. is presently the largest laboratory of its kind with approximately one million certifications issued every year. This represents only about 3 percent of Swiss watchmaking.

Chronofiable
Founded by the Centre de Contrôle de la Fiabilte of the Swiss Watchmaking Federation and executed by Laboratoires Dubois SA, a new certification made its debut in 1992. Chronofiable is presently a demanding certification process that submits a watch to accelerated aging by simulating normal wear with an intensity factor of about eight. Six months of wear are compressed into just 21 days of tests, during which the complete timepieces (with case) are subjected to 20,000 impacts between 250 and 5500 m/s2, angular accelerations of about 8rad/s2, and thermic variations at 17, 30 and 57ºC. Before and after each test, the functions of each watch are measured according to several parameters that include rate and amplitude at a temperature of 0 and 50ºC as well as power reserve and winding speed (for watches with automatic winding).
FQF, Certified Haute Horlogerie
On the 5 June 2001, a group of brands including Chopard, Parmigiani Fleurier, Bovet Fleurier, and movement manufacturer Vaucher gathered to create a new and demanding set of esthetical and technical criteria in order to certify their finished watches. The criteria of this certification developed by what is known as the Foundation Qualite Fleurier demanded conformity with a series of esthetical parameters that takes materials, finishing and manufacturing processes into consideration. If a watch shows conformity with these criteria, the complete battery of Chronofiable tests are performed on the first batches of produced units. The first 1 to 100 pieces of the run are submitted in batches of five; from 101 to 200 in batches of ten; and from 201 pieces onwards in batches of 20. The timepieces then pass to the next phase where they are subjected to all the criteria of the ISO 3159 and ISO 17025 norms, presently also enforced by the C.O.S.C. The watch is then finally submitted to the Fleuritest, which will check the watch's functions across 24 hours on a machine that simulates human movements in alternating phases of rest and activity. The variations in rate are than analyzed through digital pictures, and the performance of the watch must remain between 0 and +5 seconds a day. At the end of this process, which is one of the toughest and most expensive in the industry, the watch receives the FQF, Certified Haute Horlogerie certification. 
The Patek Philippe Seal
In March 2009, Patek Philippe - for more than a century one of the most important watchmakers to regularly receive the Geneva Seal - decided to go its own way and present a new set of internal criteria. More than a certification that is external and independent, the Patek Philippe Seal is an internal guarantee characterized by the manufacture as an evolution of the quality and independence that always guided the brand and that now expresses a level of perfection that greatly surpasses the demands of other certification entities. Patek Philippe has an integrated vertical production and manufactures its own movements, cases and other associated components, an aspect that the Geneva Seal has only now started to consider. The Patek Philippe Seal introduced new criteria that consider the complete watch, in which chronometric performance plays a vital role. The company thus decided to consider concrete values of precision as they relate to the different degrees of complexity in each piece. Movements 20 or more millimeters in diameter have to display an accuracy of between -3 to +2 seconds a day, while smaller calibers have slightly less demanding test rates of -5 to +1 a day. During final inspection, the famed tourbillons must present a strict variation of rate between -2 and +1 seconds a day, with a maximum deviation of 4 seconds in each one of the six positions in which it is measured. This is a remarkable level of technical performance for an encased watch. The final rate is then registered in the form of an individual certificate issued for each tourbillon.