This model was produced between 2014 and 2016.

F.P.Journe, Official Watchmaker of France – China 50

Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the People’s Republic of China:
With over 30 years of savoir-faire and creativity, F.P. Journe is the Official Watchmaker of France-China 50 to represent excellence in the field of haute horology. Patron of the event, F.P. Journe has designed the commemorative watch that has been presented during the different events of France-China 50. Leader among the most prestigious horological firms, F.P. Journe has opened an exclusive network of 9 Boutiques over the world, including one rue du Faubourg St Honoré in Paris, next to the Elysée Palace, and 1 Boutique in China since 2006, in Hong Kong’s Landmark Prince’s Building.

The Commemorative Watch Octa Automatique Lune:
The Platinum case features a novel blue dial dedicated for this event with gold arabic numerals, hours minutes, small seconds, phases of the moon, an exceptional power reserve of over 120 hours, a large date and the F.P. Journe and France-China 50 logos. The mechanical movement with automatic winding in 18K rose Gold beating to a frequency of 21,600v/h is visible through the transparent sapphire back.

The unidirectional off centre F.P. Journe rotor in 22K rose Gold includes a self-locking ball bearing system. Each infinitesimal movement is thus exploited for an optimized winding of the watch.

Calibre OCTA

A horological ideal

“The construction of the Octa calibre has less powerful ties with horological history than do the constant-force device or resonance models, but it symbolises an horological ideal of giving timekeepers the highest possible degree of precision and autonomy!

One can indeed note the fact that if church clocks are placed so high, in addition to enhancing visibility, it was mostly because it often took an entire month for the driving-weights to drop the length of their cords. Numerous systems were invented to increase the operating duration of timekeeping devices, meeting with various degrees of success. Given the small volume of a wristwatch, the size of the mainspring was automatically limited. Watchmakers therefore discovered the trick of adding an extra wheel to the customary geartrain in order to extend the duration of its development. Unfortunately, actually using this system, even with a stronger spring, led them to observe that the level of energy actually reaching the balance remained low. To compensate for this, they fitted a smaller balance using less energy, but which was also less stable. It is therefore not unusual to find that some watches able to run for several days display an extremely unpredictable level of precision.

This challenge was a powerful source of motivation! I then imagined that the best and the most obvious means of extending the running duration would be to extend the capacity of the spring development. The difficulty lay in integrating it on the same level as the gear-train and the escapement, given its stability: 1 metre and 1 millimetre thick. Thanks to the low torque of this spring, I could achieve extremely fast automatic winding (one and a half hours on a Chappuis cyclotest for over 5 days’ running).

Once the challenge of autonomy was thus successfully met with this automatic winding calibre, I knuckled down to the second challenge of managing to insert various complications into that same movement: power reserve with large date display, fly-back chronograph with large date display, retrograde annual calendar, etc… and of doing so while maintaining an identical size for all models.

Three years of research and development were required before this automatic winding movement that is unique in the world could be presented to the public.”

François-Paul Journe