Minute repetition is nothing more than an acoustic complication, in mechanical watches it is triggered by a button on the side of the case. Once the repetition mechanism is triggered, the current time is knocked out on demand. The pounding is done by hammers striking against a steel resonant wire running around the mechanism, parallel to the case. There are very many types of repetition, from the simplest mechanism that only punches out the hours, through more complicated ones, here separate tones are used for hours and minutes.
The idea was to make it possible to use the watch in the dark, as well as to help the blind.
The first design of a watch with a minute repetition mechanism was made in 1749. Pierre – Joseph de Rivaz, although the initiator was Antoine Thiout in about 1740.
Minute repetition is ranked as one of the most difficult watchmaking complications, followed closely by tourbillon or evanescence.
In the main picture we put an example, the mechanism in Vacheron Constantin caliber 2755
