Austrian pocket watch with a one-minute tourbillon Circa 1990

Silver extraordinary pocket watch by Richard Habring
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An extraordinary Austrian pocket watch with a one-minute tourbillon and in-line movement, circa 1990.
Silver polished case with a glazed front and back, hinged lid on the backside, and screw-locked pendant with key for winding. Glass dial with blued Breguet hands. In-line movement, gilt, keywind, flying tourbillon carriage in form of R with blued steel arms, inline escapement with flying escape wheel, screw compensation balance, and blued balance spring with a terminal curve.
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Diameter: 57 mm
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Weight: 94 g
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Signed: Richard Habring
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Richard Habring, Austrian watchmaker
In 1985 Richard Habring began training at the renowned Karlstein School of Watchmaking. In the same year, his first watch signed Habring was created: The regulator in the Viennese tradition. Every Karlstein graduate has to create such a watch because learning the manufacturing methods of old masters is the cornerstone of solid craftsmanship.
Habring’s teachers quickly recognized the special talent of their exceptional student. His first draft of a perpetual calendar adorns the school library of the Karlstein Watchmaking School – long before all versions developed using CAD computers today.
A little over a year after completing his training, Habring returned to Karlstein for the master craftsman examination. With his masterpiece, a minute tourbillon in a tiny frame that he designed and realized himself, he visibly astonished the examination committee. A clock tourbillon from the 1970s and 1980s, made by the graduates of the master class that was still being held at the time, provided the inspiration.
Richard Habring has been producing hand-picked individual items – mostly tourbillons or complicated chronographs – with the signature “Richard Habring” on behalf of his customers since 1989.
In 1996 Richard Habring manufactured the world’s first two-axis tourbillon the size of a pocket watch, whose exceptional speed and reliability made it ideal for use in a grandfather clock.
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Tourbillon
A system devised and patented by Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1801 to compensate for errors of rate caused by the Earth’s gravitational force in upright positions. The escapement is mounted in a revolving cage with the regulating organ (balance) at the centre.
The escape-wheel pinion turns about the fixed fourth wheel. The cage generally revolves once a minute and, in doing so, compensates for errors of rate caused by the vertical position in which pocket watches spend most of their time.
This delicate and complex structure is one of watchmaking’s most ingenious mechanisms. A simplified and more robust alternative is the carousel where the cage is driven not by the fourth wheel but by the third wheel. A Tourbillon can contain a lever or a detent escapement.