Believe me – when I started out this week with a post about the Glashütte Original (Glashütte Original Goes Global With Its New Senator Chronometer) I had absolutely no idea it would be the first of 3 posts on GO watches this week! But here we are, #3 this week about a watch from Glashütte Original, the renowned German manufacture!

Actually, I am more than happy to be sharing yet another splendid watch from our friends in Germany – after all, when they are unveiling watches like this, how can I not cover them!  So let’s get down to it, shall we?  Check out the new, limited edition Glashütte Original Strasser & Rohde Regulator:

While the name does leave something to be desired – there are several things about this watch that make it quite special.  For one, it is a tribute watch to another now defunct Glashütte-based watchmaking company known for their accurate and aesthetic pendulum watches (circa the late 1800′s).  This company’s name?  Strasser and Rhode, of course (more on S&R at the bottom of the post).

And of course it is an elegantly designed watch known as a “regulator”.  What’s the deal with a “regulator” you ask?  I think Glashütte Original does a fine job of explaining this:

In watchmaking tradition, “regulator” watches were special pendulum clocks, used by watchmakers in their workshops to set the exact time and therefore to test the precision of smaller watches. They were also used in science whenever extremely precise time indicators were needed, like in the field of astronomy.

In order to achieve optimum readability of the time, the hands were positioned on different axes of the dial. As the sole central hand, the minute hand dominated.  The other hands were smaller and located in decentralized sub-dial areas.

Every watchmaker’s workshop always contained a regulator in a clearly visible position as a time reference.

Consistent with the nature of a regulator watch, the dial of the GO Strasser & Rohde is pure and minimalist, and dominated by an elegantly shaped blued minute hand.  The 2 subdials mark the hours and the seconds.  The watch case is polished rose gold, 42mm in diameter, and 12.8mm high.

Perhaps what is as interesting an element as any on this watch is its wonderfully decorated movement – a GO hand-wound caliber 49-04, with blued screws and screwed gold chatons:

Too bad they will only be making 25 of them.

Here is some good historical information on Strasser and Rohdes,courtesy of Glashütte Original:

Ludwig Strasser and Gustav Rohde established their business partnership in Glashütte in 1875. Ludwig Strasser served his watchmaker’s apprenticeship with Sebastian Geist in Würzburg and was already, by way of Moritz Grossmann, resident in Glashütte in 1871.

After a brief period in Leipzig with the tower clock manufacturers Zachariä, he returned one year later to Glashütte. In 1875, Ludwig Strasser and Gustav Rohde jointly founded the company “Strasser & Rohde” in Glashütte.

Strasser & Rohde produced precision pendulum clocks in the most varied designs, including inverse construction (anchor from below on the escape wheel).  Their product range also included marine chronometers, precision tools, speedometers, safety clocks for safes, pocket watches, chronoscopes and various timers.

On 1st May 1885, Ludwig Strasser became the director of the German Watchmaking School in Glashütte, where he had already been teaching theory for a number of years.

The last Strasser & Rohde pendulum clock was delivered to an observatory in Greece on 19th June 1959. It was a field clock with a 24-hour dial of the B I type, with lateral weighted guidance, electrical contacts and Riefler-J pendulum.

Glashütte Original pays tribute to this ingenious watchmaking heritage with its limited-edition Strasser & Rohde Regulator.

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