2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

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RichM
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2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by RichM »

Hi everyone,

this has been bugging me for a while. My Bremont has 2.5 minute markers on the chronograph subdial.

I'm sure there's a practical, historical reason for it but can't find an explanation anywhere.

Does anyone have any knowledge of why this is or is it just a design style? Pic below.

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welshlad
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by welshlad »

I don't have any information, but my guess would be it's to balance with the major markings on the left sub-dial, i.e. purely for aesthetics.
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

^^I'd agree with that, Steve. I think individual minute marks would be more useful on a chronograph, though. That looks a bit "form before function" to me.
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by RichM »

The later models have minute markers so there has been a change in thinking.
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by JAFO »

I agree. Tiny minute markers or dots would also match the second markers on the sub seconds dial.
If the minutes just move on the minute, it's probably easy enough to tell where you are, I've just looked at two random chronos I happen to have out, and they both have minute markers
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by A1soknownas »

The Tag Heuer Heritage Autavia has the same approach on some of its dials so it is not uncommon.

As above more markers would look fine and even more of a balance in this case.

Either way, yours looks like a great watch!
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Slightly off-topic, but a lot of older chronographs have long indices at 3, 6 and 9 minutes. Also this one was unusual in having a 45 minute subdial. Good for a football referee?

We discussed this years ago and thought that the 3-minute subdivisions might hark back to the days when telephone companies charged by the unit of 3 minutes (or part thereof).

200620132020.jpg
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by RichM »

^^^ that's interesting about the markers. I'm going to spend some time this evening researching it! (My Saturday nights really are that exciting!)
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by RichM »

It's been really bugging me so I did some online research last night (my Saturday nights really are filled with glamour and excitement!).

There's one thread that says historically flight navigators plotting aircraft positions prefer to have 5 minute markers on dials for clarity and another piece of information from an archived online Christopher Ward brochure no less about WW2 colour sector clocks.

In RAF Ops Rooms incoming aircraft would be colour coded as either red, yellow or blue with the coloured arrows corresponding on the OpsTable at a succession of 5 minute intervals, later reduced to 2.5 minute intervals as aircraft speeds increased during the end of WW2.

There is at least some background to 2.5 and 5 minute timing intervals.

Buuuut... nothing that directly links to this particular Bremont design!
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Re: 2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

I've no idea why Bremont are using 2.5 minutes markers.

Perhaps they are taking a lead from an elder statesman in the Horological World; Breguet.

Image

Although to confuse the issue, the markers on my Type XX Aeronavale are every 2 minutes.. :confused:

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2.5 minute marker on chronograph subdial.

Post by Robotaz »

Ah. 2.5 minute markers. Pretty useless, but there’s always this. A chronograph with no minutes.

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