George Daniels - Patek Phillipe produce a poor replica of the co-axial escapement (50/85)

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   • George Daniels (Master watchmaker)  

English watch-maker George Daniels (1926-2011) was most famous for creating the co-axial escarpment and could make a complete watch by hand. In his lifetime, he received many awards, including the rarely-given Gold Medal of the Clockmakers' Company of London. [Listener: Roger Smith; date recorded: 2003]

TRANSCRIPT: So, the Millennium watches were finished and sold, and all very satisfactory at the end of a very good project, which did a good deal to publicise the co-axial escapement and satisfy all those people who wanted a Daniel's watch but would never get one while I was only making one each year. And that's in stark contrast to my experience in Switzerland, where Patek Philippe were working to produce models of the examples of the escapement and they weren't succeeding and they weren't very pleased with me and it was quite obviously in their minds all my fault that it didn't go properly. And then I had a letter from the manufacturer, lever manufacturers in Switzerland, FAR, Fabriques d'Assortiment réunies and they included a copy of a test report on the escapement that Patek Philippe had made and it didn't make very good reading. I mean obviously everything about the escapement was wrong and I was very cross about that and so I wrote them a letter and pointed out that this did not represent my work, it was not made by me, it was designed by me, but not made correctly to my design. And the particular feature that they had pointed out was quite wrong in the escapement was one which I had had a big argument with... with Patek Philippe, and I knew it was wrong and I knew it wouldn't run, but they decided not to listen to me. And that... I was very cross about this report and if a single word of it leaked out into the public, then I would have them in a Swiss court of law and would expose the whole farce, as it had gone on for those four years. And so they then wrote me a letter, which I still have, to say that they had every admiration for my work, they accepted all I said, they were going to pin my letter to their letter in their files so the two could never be separated. So that all ended quite well in that... insofar any way as my honour was satisfied, even if the makers of the movement weren't very satisfied.