Eberhard & Co. Scientigraf X WATCHOUSE: A Success Story

A passion for watchmaking makes you feel alive and curious. We, at Watch Insanity, have a place where we nurture this passion and where we like to share it with others enthusiasts, instill it to others, make it grow. It is the WATCHOUSE Forum, the house where horology aficionados can get in touch, discuss, I would even say let themselves be infected – if it didn’t seem inappropriate right now – by the love for beautiful watches.

A new Italian forum, created to give a voice to those who appreciate beautiful watchmaking. A non-profit forum, which over a few months has been able to become popular among fans and earn the esteem of international brands. And today we involved one of them in a wonderful project: the first limited edition of watches dedicated to WATCHOUSE.

We are talking about Eberhard & Co., one of the historic Swiss watchmaking brands that, however, has a very Italian heart, just as the Forum. Founded in 1887 by Georges Eberhard in La Chaux-De-Fonds and then passed on to his son Maurice, the company was taken over in 1969 by Palmiro Monti and has since retained an Italian soul, with Barbara – CEO and Palmiro’s daughter – and Mario Peserico – General Manager – at its head.

EBERHARD & Co. SCIENTIGRAF: THE SHARM OF THE PAST

Together with WATCHOUSE, Eberhard has created a limited edition of the Scientigraf, one of the novelties launched last year by the brand. It is a watch that incorporates the aesthetics and technical solutions of its ancestor, created by the brand in 1961. It is characterized by a soft-iron inner case which absorbs electromagnetic fields, preventing them from reaching the movement and negatively impact its performance.

This solution – called Faraday Cage, inspired by the name of the British physicist who invented it in the nineteenth century – was in fact already introduced in the 1961 piece, when machinery generating electromagnetic fields was much less common than today. This structure is even more useful nowadays in front of the enormous spread of electronic devices, demonstrating Eberhard’s foresight in using it 60 years ago.

The Scientigraf presented in 2021 has a 41 mm, 100 meters water-resistant case, also thanks to the screwed crown; it is powered by a Sellita SW 300-1 self-winding caliber, robust and reliable, with an indication of the hours, minutes and seconds (the seconds hand is a beautiful, so-called “lollipop” hand). The limited edition of 75 watches created for WATCHOUSE members has the same aesthetics, but the special pieces feature some details that make them unique, as they should be.

THE WATCHOUSE LIMITED EDITION

The steel case has a double polished and satin finish, and the case back is personalized with the number of the limited edition. Unlike the current Scientigraf collection, our watch has a gray degradé dial (which is black in the current collection), triangular gold indexes and the WATCHOUSE logo at 6 o’clock, with Super-Luminova. The sapphire crystal is hollowed and domed, with anti-reflective coating.

The three-row steel bracelet is a Chassis type, with a polished central link: therefore, it has the same alternation of finishes that also characterizes the case. It is complemented by a new two-button closure, and a buckle is given as an extra feature. The price? 2350 euros.

Once presented on WATCHOUSE, the distribution was made based on the comments: those who answered by confirming the order got their watch. For both the orders and the waiting list, the Forum staff considerer the order in which the comments were posted.

And what is the result? Let’s listen to those who founded the Forum and live it every day, Jacopo Giudici and Giorgione; who designed the watch, BludiMelo; and who will produce the limited edition, Eberhard, through the words of its General Manager Mario Peserico.

Jacopo Giudici

“Since the Forum was born, Giorgione and I immediately had the idea of a limited edition that would represent the spirit of WATCHOUSE, something special that no one would ever have expected. A Swiss-made watch, robust, reliable, perfect for every occasion and, above all, with a story. Thinking about this last characteristic, Giorgione came to think of the Scientigraf. Recently back into Eberhard’s collection, the famous sports watch of the 60s had exactly all the features we were looking for. Eberhard immediately liked the idea, and Mario Peserico started talking about it with us and with our friend BludiMelo. Giorgione will now give you all the details.”

Giorgione

“We chose Eberhard because the Scientigraf is perfect for the idea we had and for our Forum members’ profile, in addition to the fact that Mario Peserico is a dear friend. We wanted to start with a watch that many members could buy,” Giorgione says. “Furthermore, we needed a brand with a story guaranteeing that we would satisfy as many requests as possible, during a moment in which finding watches is difficult. We discussed the limited edition, Eberhard liked the project and we launched it.

“The response was better than we expected,” Giorgione confirms. “We are a small forum – and we want to remain so – with around 800 members, and when we spoke with Eberhard we had received requests for a number of watches that we would be sure to meet. We settled on 30 pieces, but in the first 9 minutes after opening the reservations we had arrived at 75 requests so we had to close the list, which should have been open for a week. We then opened a waiting list to which over 100 people already registered. For a forum of 800 members, it means well over 10%: a success beyond our imagination.”

Mario Peserico

Friendship, of course, but also esteem in the WATCHOUSE project, as Mario Peserico himself confirms: “The fact that WATCHOUSE is young was a plus in the decision to undertake this operation together, as the quick and enthusiastic response to the limited edition demonstrated. Giorgione and Jacopo have built a project of high quality that has generated an equally high-quality response. One of the important elements of success is also the fact that the Scientigraf is a beautiful product which is giving Eberhard great satisfaction, in addition to the dial designed by BludiMelo, which has a beautiful impact. The mix of all these features has created an interesting case history.”

Eberhard doesn’t easily produce limited editions: “A 135 year-old brand does not live thanks to limited editions: we made them, but only if there is a strong motivation. A high-level enthusiasts target such as WATCHOUSE members, and the support for a charity project we are now studying led us to create this limited edition. Furthermore, customers like the Scientigraf because it is well made, it has an excellent price positioning, and it is the best watch for this kind of operation.”

BludiMelo 

But who designed the watch for WATCHOUSE? Let’s hear BludiMelo: “I’m an advertising designer. My passion for watches started around the age of 25, and I soon realized that I could combine it with my job: so my creations came to life little by little. It is never easy to customize a watch, especially if it is a historical model. I wanted to give the Scientigraf an identity that does not stray too far from the original: I started from the idea of ​​creating the golden indexes, and I customized the design of the dial with the degradé color.”

Having the freedom to imagine is important for a creative talent: “When I work on the dials with Giorgione, I always have the green light to create,” says BludiMelo. “In this case, it was a three-way collaboration: Eberhard approved the color, the idea of H in Super-Luminova at 6 o’clock came from Giorgione, the golden indexes are mine.”

And the result didn’t take too long to come: “I usually spend more time working on the idea than on the creation of a watch, so when I start from a good model, the idea comes by itself and the creation too. With Eberhard, the process was fast because the watch is very beautiful.”

This limited edition doesn’t represent just a watch, but the first outcome of a work built on solid ground. A collaboration between two realities – one is newly born, the other is over a hundred years old – with many common things to share, starting with the passion for precision, beauty and high quality. Will it be the first of a long series? We will see…

By Davide Passoni