To celebrate the continued success of The Alfred and answer the desire of our collectors and connoisseurs, please meet the smaller Alfred in 40mm. All of the features you love with a new folding clasp and buffalo leather strap.
First a final cut solid fine silver dial is engraved with the selected indexes, numerals, and texts. The ultra-shallow engravings are hand filled with a lacquer, and the surplus hardened material then polished off by use of increasingly fine diamond paper. The dial grenage layer is then built by manually treating and brushing a secret mix of silver powder, salt, and other ingredients onto the blank silver dial surface. By electrochemical bonding process, the dial face builds up a frosted pearled and unique silvered surface with incredible depth and granularity. The dial surface is achieved by a process that is handmade. This means every dial is unique, and every watch will, therefore, have its own personality and character.
Most watch hands today are designed and manufactured industrially. Many in a simple stamped out shape with perhaps a fold in the center line to give some strength to the construction. Bluing is most often done chemically.
Urban Jürgensen hands are handmade. They are individually honed, polished, assembled, and thermally blued to the specified Urban Jürgensen shade.
The steel arms of the hands are cut from selected steel and hand finished to perfect shape and fit. After careful polishing with increasingly fine grain diamond paper, ending with mirror polishing by use of shape fitted secret types of dried wood. Finally, the arms are thermally blued to arrive at the perfect Urban Jürgensen navy colour.
The eye is designed with an asymmetrical geometry that elevates the elegance of the entire hand by tapering the volume from the dial centre towards the tip of the hand.
The center canons for the hands have been turned on a precision lathe and mirror polished. The arms of the hands have then been carefully riveted in place around the canons for the perfect fit.
Urban Jürgensen hands require numerous hours of highly skilled workmanship and are a key feature of Urban Jürgensen timepieces not found in any other watches today.
Contrary to industrial design of lugs for a watch case, which makes them easily machine milled out as an integrated part of the case, the teardrop lugs on Urban Jürgensen’s timepieces have been individually forged, heat treated, hand polished, and individually soldered onto the watch case in a way which makes the soldering line invisible to the naked eye.
The forging requires between 5 and 8 cycles through a process where little by little the final form of a paired tear drop set is forged into shape under the pressure of 50 tons. To prevent the solid lugs from becoming brittle, it is necessary after each forging cycle to release the tension in the metal through a slow heat treatment at approximately 800 degrees with a cool off period. Small variations in the composition of the metal used means adjusting the process by experience is usually needed. This results in the initial process requires a full day of work to arrive at the basic forged lug shape, even in very small series.
The paired lugs are then separated from their base, and carefully milled and hand polished into the perfect fit for the case soldering. The process of soldering the individual lugs onto the case is secret, as the exact way of doing this requires extraordinary skills to secure a perfect soldering of the highest quality obtainable, while ensuring a perfect angle of all lugs at the same time – and with no visible soldering line. The heat level needed is close to the melting point of the used material, and as such it is an extremely delicate process.
The resulting case design is, however, breathtaking in its sheer elegance and classic execution, but due to the difficulties and costs of the time consuming handcrafted process the technology is rarely used nowadays.
At Urban Jürgensen, it remains a treasured and iconic hallmark of distinction.
COLLECTION OF YOUR WATCH
The Alfred is exclusively available direct from Urban Jürgensen.
You will be invited to an evening at the Atelier in Biel, Switzerland with Urban Jürgensen CEO, Soren Jenry Petersen. This is a rare opportunity to meet with the people behind the brand, the watchmakers and craftsmen that have spent months on bringing the timepiece to life.
This immersive experience will allow you to discover the creative and manufacturing process of the watch and further understand the passion, care and attention that goes into an Urban Jürgensen timepiece.
“We work in the old fashion way of handcrafting many of our timepiece parts, and working with elite specialists to make watches of classical beauty and value. We would be delighted to welcome you at our Atelier, and show you how we work, hoping to give you an experience for life, as well as receiving your own specially made Alfred”
The Urban Jürgensen tradition goes as far back as 1745 when Jürgen Jürgensen was born in Copenhagen. Jürgen Jürgensen founded a horological dynasty that would have a major influence on watchmaking in Denmark and Switzerland over centuries.
Jacques Alfred Jürgensen is the second member of the fourth generation of Jürgensen watchmakers and the second generation in Switzerland. Born in Le Locle in 1842 as the youngest son of Jules Jürgensen, he was trained as a watchmaker and he was integrated to the daily affairs of the family company at the age of 19. Known for working on chronographs and other complications of the highest quality, his watches were regularly distinguished at watchmaking exhibitions. He even set up his own company that was located under the same roof as the Jules Jürgensen Copenhagen company in Le Locle, producing watches under his own name or unsigned to third parties including to Tiffany & Co New York.
‘We have the faith and love in our art’ – Jacques Alfred Jürgensen.
These were found in our archives while moving to our new Atelier ealier this year. Inspiration for ‘The Alfred’. a single dial made by Jacque Alfred along with a signed movement.
SPECIFICATION
Movement
Urban Jürgensen Movement P4
Swiss Lever Escapement
Manual winding
Hours, minutes, small seconds
Adjusted to temperature, isochronism in five (5) positions
Stop seconds
Twin barrels
Autonomy 72 hours
Frequency 21’600 V/h (3 Hz)
Twenty-three (23) jewels
Diameter 32.00 mm
Thickness 5.20 mm
Case
Stainless Steel 40 or 42 mm Round 3-piece case, with a convex bezel
Individually soldered teardrop lugs
Domed sapphire crystal
Open back with flat sapphire crystal
Water resistant 3 ATM
Dial
Single piece solid silver handmade Grenage dial
Hand lacquered engraved dial
Hands
Hand made in thermally blued steel
Diamond polished eye
Buckle
The Alfred 40 comes with a folding buckle in Stainless Steel, signed Urban Jürgensen.
The Original Alfred 42mm comes with a classic C-buckle in Stainless Steel, signed Urban Jürgensen.