Urban Jürgensen

Urban Jürgensen

Perpetual calendar Reference 2

1990

No. 20 of a limited edition of 125 in yellow gold, 50 in platinum

Beautiful 38mm. 18ct yellow gold case with tear-drop lugs, original gold winding crown stamped UJS, solid snap-on case back

Solid silver dial under sapphire crystal with exquisite engine-turned centre, outer Roman chapters, signed Urban Jürgensen Copenhagen No. 020 beneath the gold and blued steel monophase, apertures for day and month with date below, beautiful solid-gold ‘Observatoire' hour and minute hands

Ultra-slim Frédéric Piguet caliber automatic movement beautifully finished and elaborately hand-decorated, featuring a 21k gold guilloche rotor, signed with the UJS crest, adjusted to heat, cold, isochronism and 5 positions, with 35 jewels.

Specially made Handdn brown leather strap with the original 18ct gold Jürgensen buckle

£55,000

URBAN JÜRGENSEN REFERENCE 2 The Reference I was the first wristwatch produced by the Peter Baumberger & Derek Pratt partnership featuring a standard Zenith ebauche triple calendar and chronograph, it was made in 186 examples between 1982 and 1986. The Ref. 2, produced in the 1990's used the much superior Frédéric Piguet caliber 71 – the same base was used by Breguet. Most obviously, the Reference 2 dropped the chronograph function whist upgrading the triple calendar to a full-blown perpetual calendar. The perpetual calendar module sitting atop the Piguet base was developed by Lemania – Baumberger secured the rights to this module for the ref. 2. The case aesthetic is similar to the Reference 1 but it was refined with a sleeker 38mm case and a thinner stepped bezel. The bezel in particular is far more elegant on the ref. 2 – more in line with the grace and class of the rest of the watch. The soldered teardrop lugs are still small but not quite as tiny relative to the package when compared to its older brother – an improvement in my eyes. THE URBAN JURGENSEN STORY (With deepest apologies to the brilliant Hodinkee writer Rich Fordon for blatant plagiarism – but he is the best in the business) The story starts with Jørgen Jürgensen, an early Danish watchmaker, in 1773. To give a sense of what Danish watchmaking looked like in the late 1700s, around 20 craftsmen were registered to the trade in Copenhagen. Before Jørgen received Royal support for his business in 1781, the majority of watches in Denmark were imported and of low quality. He successfully made the case over many years that with the government's support, he could create a true domestic industry. As a result, Jørgen can be described as the father of Danish watchmaking. He trained apprentices and was given the right to run a manufacturer. This right was even extended to his sons... "if they possessed the necessary competence for the task." Jørgen's eldest son, Urban Jürgensen, proved to possess more than the necessary competence. Born in 1776, Urban was incredibly intelligent, leaving Copenhagen at the age of 21 after Jørgen decided he had learned all that he could in his home country. His travels brought him to Le Locle, studying under Jacques-Frédéric Houriet; to Paris, to learn from Abraham-Louis Breguet and Ferdinand Berthoud; and then to London, apprenticing for John Arnold and John Brockbank. Urban Jürgensen was one of the best-trained watchmakers in the world by the time he returned to Copenhagen in 1801 – and he backed it up. Before his death in 1830, he produced over 700 watches, including 45 marine chronometers. Urban experimented with various escapement technologies he had encountered during his travels, working with various ébauches, but he certainly preferred the chronometer or detent escapement. He even improved upon the work of Thomas Earnshaw and John Arnold in England by developing the detached double-wheel chronometer escapement toward the end of his career. Jørgen established the idea of Danish watchmaking, and Urban ran with it – particularly with an eye for scientific precision and accuracy. So, if all sounds good with Jørgen and Urban in the first 60 years of Jürgensen watchmaking, How did I come to view the name as standing for cheap eBay watches? Part of the reason is because I didn't know the work of these two men well enough, and part of it is because of what occurred over the next 150 years. Following Urban's death, the story of the Jürgensen dynasty begins to devolve. While some special watches were produced, the subsequent Jürgensen generations lacked a truly ground-breaking watchmaker. The Danish company was Urban Jürgensen & Sønner by 1891; then, Urban Jürgensen & Sønne Eftf in 1886. Meanwhile, one of Urban's sons, Jules Frederik, moved to Switzerland and established a subsidiary branch. Jules (I) had two sons, Jules (II) and Jacques Alfred, the latter of which created his own brand under Jacques Alfred Jürgensen Locle in 1865, the first full break away from the family business. By 1919, Ed. Heuer & Co. (right, that same Heuer) purchased the Swiss Jürgensen operation. The move was an early attempt by Heuer to sell into the burgeoning U.S. market. Heuer handled the regulation and assembly of Jules Jürgensen watches using ébauches from LeCoultre and Victorin Piguet – the same suppliers as Patek Philippe. Specifically, by utilizing a distributor in the U.S., the purchase proved to be a fruitful venture. The Heuer ownership was ultimately short-lived. Due to macroeconomic headwinds resulting from World War I and the Great Depression, the Jules Jürgensen name was sold in 1936 to an American company. Ultimately, from 1936 into the 2000s, Jules Jurgensen was sold stateside four times – with seemingly cheaper watches produced after each sale – until fizzling out entirely. Back in Denmark, Urban Jürgensen existed for much of the 20th century as a small distributor of Swiss watches (including those from Jules), a repair center, and a museum. That is until a Swiss entrepreneur and watchmaker named Peter Baumberger happened to be in Copenhagen in 1976. Baumberger was visiting friends and wandered into an exhibit celebrating the greatest Danish watchmaker to ever live. Floored by what he saw and after years of persuasion, he purchased the rights to Urban Jürgensen in 1979. Much of this persuasion involved leveraging a friend, the heralded Derek Pratt. It was only after showing the representatives of Jürgensen a watch that Pratt had been working on for five years that Baumberger was allowed to finally purchase the brand. Much can be read about Derek Pratt, but to put it simply, he was old school – making watches entirely by hand, the same way that we now praise some of the biggest names in watchmaking for, before it was cool. Born in England and spending most of his life in Switzerland, Pratt developed his own movements (oftentimes making every component, down to the screws, by hand) and was well known around the industry for his mastery of hand guillochéd dials – not dissimilar to Jürgensen's current CEO Being English and obsessed with handmade watches, it should come as no surprise that he was close with George Daniels. The two spoke weekly, and rumour has it that Pratt machined the small pinion needed to create the thin co-axial escapement. Pratt also served as somewhat of a spokesman for Daniels in Switzerland, as he spoke Swiss-German and French. It was Pratt who shopped the co-axial escapement technology around Geneva first, unsuccessfully, to Patek and then, successfully, to Omega. Baumberger and Pratt built a relationship thanks to Baumberger collecting antique pocket watches, which were so complex that Pratt was among the few people in the world who could fix them. In 1982, Pratt was hired as Urban Jürgensen's Technical Director, and the two were off and running. Between 1982 and 2010, Urban Jürgensen introduced and produced 11 wristwatch references, numbered ref. 1 through ref. 11. Of the 11 references easily the most collectible today are the references 1, 2, and 3.