It’s another birthday/ anniversary piece today, one which slipped our notice when it was recently launched.

This time, it was about marking thirty years of the modern (aka post German reunification) Nautische Instrumente Mühle-Glashütte with a celebratory marine chronometer. In 1994 Hans-Jürgen Mühle restarted a family company dating back to 1869 with a focus on nautical instruments, creating a new marine chronometer which met DIN 8319 standards. This German chronometer standard is basically the COSC ISO 3159, but only tests fully-cased timepieces. It requires fifteen days of testing in the same positions as for COSC.

They didn’t end up making a habit of producing marine chronometers and halted their nautical equipment series in 2017 (see this link for their final catalogue), understandably changing to focus on wristwatches.

The Quartz Marine Chronometer Edition 1994 comes in a mahogany box measuring 185mm x 185mm x 130mm. It has a cream-coloured dial featuring a “Mühle-blue” minute track, with double markers at 3, 6, 9, and 12 o’clock. The seconds function is of course on a separate sub dial.

As an anniversary nod, the 30-minute number is gold, and instead of ‘55’, there is a ‘155’, referring to their 155-year history in Glashütte, even if it was not continuous. The limitation number, in the sub dial, is also gold. Each chronometer has an anniversary plaque.

Powering it is a temperature-stabilized 4.19 MHz quartz oscillator, which ensures that the clock achieves an average deviation of less than 0.01 seconds per twenty-four hours at 21 – 23°C. The clock’s operating temperature range is -10°C to +50°C.

To ensure that the Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) timekeeping remains accurate even during a battery change, the quartz marine chronometer continues to run for at least 5 minutes without interruption when without a battery.

Limited to thirty pieces, the Mühle-Glashütte Quartz Marine Chronometer Edition 1994 special edition has a price of EUR €]1,194 and is exclusively available directly from the brand.

[Photo credit: Mühle-Glashütte]

Categories: Clocks, Ephemera, German watches, Mühle-Glashütte