The video above shows you exactly what you would see if you were playing with the actual Bird Repeater watch. The minute repeater is activated by a sliding lever on the left side of the case. Timepieces are unfortunately too small for these mechanisms, but you do have the chimes of the minute repeater (which “repeats” the time back to you in an auditory musical code).
Something notably missing is the bird call whistle system. In the pursuit of recreating life with machines, these worked better than… for example, mammals.Īs an homage to these incredible historic creations from Jaquet Droz, as well as other Swiss masters, the Bird Repeater attempts to capture the look and feel of bird automatons for 21st century collectors. I also speculate that birds were easy creatures to stuff with metal parts and allow them to still look more or less real. This along with ingenious cam systems allowed for animated displays that are still today, eerily life-like. A special whistle system allowed artisans to create lifelike bird call sounds. Well, not exactly common in the sense that everyone had one, but common in the sense that they were at the base of mechanical toys for the wealthy. In the 18th century, bird automatons were very common. It is actually a Blue Tit (snicker and giggle), which is a mountain bird rather than something from a racy homage to the film Avatar. Mechanical bird creations such as that were the inspiration behind the scene on the Bird Repeater watch. It represents complex artwork and mechanics at their finest, a tradition which had its heyday over 200 years ago.īelow you will see an image of a bird automaton that is from the original era of Jaquet Droz. It is a watch novelty at its peak – an item purely for passion and for display. It features the time with hours and minutes, a minute repeater, and an automaton display that is activated while the minute repeater is in operation. Manually wound, it contains 508 parts and has a power reserve of 48 hours. Inside The Bird Repeater watch is a new movement called the caliber RMA88.