During our annual visit to Orbita at this year’s Las Vegas watch and jewelry shows, we saw an impressive collection of new and existing winders of all sizes, holding anywhere from a single watch to as many as 48. And of course, the vast majority of these and most other winders are equipped to supply power to automatic (that is, self-winding) watches by rotating them at regular intervals so the rotors in the watches’ movements can continually supply energy to their mainsprings. But what about watches that don’t have rotors… and whose mainspring can only be wound via the watch’s crown? Fortunately, thanks to Orbita’s cleverly engineered Sempre model, owners of manual-wind timepieces have a winder made specifically for their needs. The Sempre is, according to the company, the only such winder on the market. It is intended to wind, without ever overwinding, virtually any manually wound mechanical watch. It does so with precision collets (basically, mechanical fingers) that grasp the watch’s crown and replicate the action of finger winding. As it does so, an ingenious microprocessor control senses the increasing resistance as the mainspring is being wound and automatically stops winding when the watch approaches the fully wound state. The Sempre is in a single ($2,995) or double ($4,995) model, in either burl or black leather finish. Collectors with weary fingers from the daily ritual of keeping their watches running perpetually might wish to give these a look.
Are there any other winders that are cheaper than this. This product is out of my price range & I do not wear my manual watch every day but it would be nice for it to be ready when i need it.
While fascinating and I certainly do have two manual wind watches, the price would pay for nearly 1/3 of one of them. Unless its a perpetual I say let it wind down. But when it nears a more reasonable (5-700 single) who knows...
Defeats the fun daily ritual of winding them yourself!