F.P. Journe Octa Automatique Reserve de Marche 38mm B-ORM G 38 A GO F.P. Journe Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim of The 1916 Company. Welcome and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me, Tim Asso at The1916Company.com for purchase pricing and availability questions regarding this watch. Today, we discuss a seminal watch in the history of Francois-Paul Jorne's eponymous brand, Montreux-Jorne. This is the FP-Jorne Octa Automatique Reserve de Marche. Now, the Reserve de Marche or the Automatique is a model originally launched in 2001, as you see it here. 38 millimeter case, brass movement, the first automatic FP-Jorne watch, and the model that would go on to spawn an entire line of automatic powered complications. So, this really is the origin of the species and because it is so formative and important, and because these are fairly rare given the lower level of production at the time at Montreux-Jorne, they're also being discussed as a sort of new vintage class of emerging vintage collectibles. So, this watch, the Reserve de Marche, features a 38 millimeter case that is 10.3 millimeters thick, 44.8 lug to lug to put the 20 millimeter spacing between the lugs on my wrist, which is 16 centimeters circumference. Even with a stiff strap being pulled tight, it wears easily. The lugs nowhere near the edge of my wrist, the watch flat enough to fit underneath the cuff, suitable for a wrist as small as 13 and a half centimeters circumference. A man or a woman can wear this well. The strap is obviously newer than the watch. It's the most recent Jorne strap, large rectangular scales on the top, small round scale on the bottom, gator on both sides, meaning a more expensive and more durable strap. We have medium brown with semi-gloss finish, a monotone stitch, a folded edge, and then we have a matching FP-Jorne rose gold buckle. You can see the days back when they used to stamp the marks on the interface of the buckles. This, of course, is a recent Jorne strap. So, you have the pull tab spring bars to pop the strap off without a tool, and we have curved bars, which allows Jorne to drill the case very close for unimpeded motion of the strap all the way down to vertical, if you have a small wrist, and to prevent any impingement to its motion, the curved bar is used. The case is iconic, domed bezel, domed case back, the flange of the two defining the mid case, unbranded crown, but with the double dimples and the knurling, instantly identifiable. And then we have those lugs that turn 90 degrees down from the horizontal sweep of the case, the dial, rose gold and media blast. You can see one of the elements that makes this sort of neo-vintage is that it features the tarnish that often developed on early Jorne dials. So, take note around the printed characters, there's a different shade than you'll find on the rest of the dial, and you see it also adjacent to the faceted date window. So, it's not damage, it's not water intrusion, it's nothing more than the natural aging of materials from a company that was making and ordering parts on a very small artisanal scale at the time. It's sort of a marker of an early Jorne watch, and I find it quite beautiful. Now, we have a power reserve indicator that works like a normal power reserve. So, a lot of Jorne watches, for example, something like the Tourbillon with Raymontois, it'll feature marine chronometer style power reserve, where it indicates zero when it's fully wound. This is a normal power reserve, the number it points to is the amount of hours it will continue to run, although there's a qualifier. Jorne originally announced the Octacaliber being a seven-day movement when the first word of his automatic caliber broke around 2001, that was later revised to 120 hours for a reason. The 120 hours is the fat and flat and chronometric power reserve of the single meter long mainspring. So, Jorne only advertises the accurate timekeeping span of his mainspring. In fact, if you wind it all the way and then you let it run until it stops, it will run for almost seven days at 160 hours. You just want to make sure you wind it once every 120 hours for best timekeeping. So, the dial is made of rose gold. This watch is double pink with a pink gold case and a pink gold dial. You can see it's got a fine media blast. We have a polished and beveled steel bezel surrounding the distinctively offset and asymmetrical Jorne dial. We have hours, minutes, and seconds. We have a sort of agerage or concentric pattern on part of these dials and then a pyramid or a clou de Paris on the center of the dial and we have a flush disc double digit date. So, that's always a bit of a feather in the cap of the watchmaker. If you can make one of these mechanisms and keep the discs flush on the same plane, that shows greater attention, detail, and capability. We also have the polished screws visible on the dial side. This was a bit controversial at first back in 1999 and 2000, but later became a design trademark of Jorne and something copied all over the watchmaking world. 30 meters water resistance, so don't take it swimming, but that was the original water resistance rating. A couple of things to note, marking the times, life and times of FP Jorne. First, you could see a tradition that was discontinued about midway through the 2005 model year, which was stamping or drilling in this case, the case year of construction. That is the year the case was made on the case back next to the reference. So, Automatique is the reference and 02 is the year the case was made. This watch does in fact come with paperwork confirming it was sold in 2002. Other things to note, well, you can see it's a 38 millimeter case that's discontinued and then we have the Eleanor maker's mark as well as the French double eagle hallmark. Of course, right up until mid-2008, Jorne cases were made outside of Paris by Eleanor. Jorne later bought Eleanor and moved it to Geneva as Boistier de Genève, his case making company. A lot of the same people still worked there afterwards, but after it moved to Geneva, you would not have both the French hallmarks and the Swiss hallmark on the same case. So, that's just charting the times. You can see that there's been some refishing and the refinishing hasn't quite left the double eagle as intact as it would have been. Though, you can see the Eleanor mark is still deep and distinct. This watch has been refinished, but it has been refinished in spare form and professionally. So, all the metal is still intact. The volumes are correct and symmetrical. It is not diminished as a collectible. You can also see it features the later holt head screws used to fix Jorne case backs. So, amateur watchmakers need not apply. A couple of things to note, we have a brass movement, which means that the bridges and plates of this first generation Octa 1300 are brass. We have a grand d'orge or barleycorn pattern on the 22 carat rotor. People always ask me, Tim, why is the rotor not the size of the case back? And the answer for that is that ultimately, Jorne envisioned this movement as a sort of tractor caliber to drive complications. Here, we have the double date and the power reserve, but he really had stuff like annual, perpetual calendars, retrogrades, the zodiac, the chronograph in mind. So, something about creating a consistent mating surface on the dial side for the modules required offsetting the winding system on the case backs. That's why that is the way it is. Okay. One giant mainspring, usually not a great recipe for precision or accuracy, but Jorne wanted to create what he viewed as the first automatic movement that was almost always going to run at chronometer tolerances. So, his problem with automatics is true. If you wind it every day in a COSC test, you'll keep it in the accurate part of the mainspring's wind. But if you have something that's going to be worn constantly, you don't really know what state of wind it's going to be in at any given time. So, what you need is a super flat torque curve for as long as possible. And Jorne achieved that with an ultra thin single hairspring and single barrel, excuse me, mainspring and single barrel. And that single mainspring is over a meter long. And for 120 hours, it can maintain almost constant force to the escapement without a remontoir or a fusée or a differential. That is why Jorne believed his automatic was the first that could truly keep chronometer tolerances on the wrist, where the state of wind tends to be in constant and random. Now it is five position adjusted and free sprung, both augering well for precision. The free sprung architecture also makes it more shock resistant. And you can see the balance is a huge one. It's got a lot of inertia. It's over 10 millimeters across. And so it's not a high beat movement at three Hertz, but it does have a lot of balance, inertia and mass, which makes up for that low beat. Jorne simply found it a preferable solution to do it this way. The decoration is not haute horlogerie. That was not Jorne's focus at the time, a little bit like George Daniels. He focused on mechanical innovation. So he is more Daniels than say who focused more on aesthetics. Voutilainen is a great watchmaker and a great technical watchmaker, but Jorne is really in the mold of Daniels and Breguet who did not gild the lily in their times. A beautiful movement though, and one that is super important as this model made as you see it here from 2001 to 2005 was the original FP Jorne automatic. Reach out to me team also at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.