Daniel JeanRichard was a man who was inspired by watchmaking in the 1800s. He took the art further by incorporating machineries to produce watch parts with precision.
With his passion, he began teaching and training up watch makers where the most valuable timepieces were created during that period. However, he passed away in 1761 and there was no succession thereafter. His legacy lives on in the history of Swiss watchmaking.
It was not until the beginning 1980s that Dr Luigi “Gino” Macaluso bought the Daniel JeanRichard brand name. He was determined to bring back the glory of the brand by adopting stringent production standards for its watches.
He had Sowind Group (also owning Girard-Perregaux) take up the brand name under its flagship. They set up its first shop in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
By early 1990s, their first watches collections were launched. Their major breakthrough came in 1998 when they introduced the TV Screen collection of watches.
As its name personifies, the watches looked like the TV sets of the 1940s which are round-edge squarish designs. With the great success of this collection, Daniel JeanRichard continued to produce more of such limited edition designs the following year.
The TV Screen collections’ retro and sporty styles attracted the interest of many people and created a niche for themselves within the competitive watch industry.
They began to explore more complications within the TV Screens from year 2000 onwards. They made all their watches with full automatic movements. Some of the popular models launched are:
Their other famous collections would be the Chronoscope and the Diverscope range. One of their Chronoscope that caught my attention was the Chronoscope 40mm. This is an automatic movement with 51 jewels.
It contains the hour, minute and small second functions. Indicated in its black dial are 3 counters: the small seconds at 3; hour counter at 6; and the minute counter at 9.
It also has a minute track for diving purpose with luminescent markers. The baton hands are also in luminescent white. The case is made of short-blasted steel of 40mm diameter and 14.3mm thick. It has pushers with case protection at 2 and 4. Two screw-down crown at 3 and 9 with case protection as well.
The Diverscope 40mm (shown above) has a sporty finishing and design. It uses mechanical movement with automatic winding capability. Similarly, it also has a 40mm diameter and 14.4mm thickness case. It is made of stainless steel with polished and brushed finish.
It also has 2 screw-down crowns at 3 for correcting hour and date and 9 for adjusting the two way turning flange. It dial is sand-color with blue flange minute track. For diving purpose, the 5 minute progression luminescent markers provide proper calculation to be underwater.
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