The movements
Photos of the 1568 from the original parts manual put out by A.Schild SA. As well as the movements, Horae has been careful to purchase parts for all future repairs.
The 1568 movement. This shows the finish of these movements. the gold plating and the sun burst finish of the stainless steel winding gears is typical of the 1970s when these movements were made.
Portrait thought to be of Adolph Schild taken around 1900.
The Voyager and its Movement
At the heart of the Horae line lie the Voyager alarm watch series and the Pascal dual time and date series. Both of these have remarkable movements that you have to know about to appreciate the watches.
The Voyager
The Voyager is basically designed as a classical mechanical alarm watch, with a durable stainless steel case made out of 316L steel and a reliable hand wound mechanical movement. The movement is , of course, Swiss made, and the A.Schild 1568 movement which powers the Voyager is without doubt the most popular hand wound alarm movement ever made. Many people also consider it the best alarm movement made on account of its accuracy, durability and reliability.
A.Schild and the AS 1568 Movement
The A.Schild 1568 (usually abbreviated "AS 1568") was manufactured by A.Schild SA sometime in the early 1970s. By then, A.Schild SA had been in business for some 80 years. Founded in 1896 by Adolph Schild, in a few short years it became the center pin of the Swiss watch industry. Perhaps the first company organized solely to make watch movements, A.Schild, for its very start manufactured watch movements for sale to other watch companies, thereby revolutionizing the watch business.
Prior to A.Schild, every company , for better or worse , made their own watch movements, cased their own watches and made the whole watch from start to finish. There were a few specialized makers, such as dial makers and hand makers, but it was Adolph Schild who basically introduced the concept of a specialized movement manufacturer that did not make watches and only made watch movements.
Within a few very short years, Schild's firm became easily the most important watch movement manufacturer in Switzerland. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that it was the most influential company in the Swiss watch industry. By the 1960s, over half of the jeweled lever watches made in Switzerland had A.Schild movements in them, irrespective of their brand. In fact, other than the very most expensive watches, or cheap, low quality watches, it was impossible to find a watch that did not use Schild movements.
What makes Schild's achievement even more remarkable was that almost the only type of movement Schild ever made were basic time only movements. Initially these were hand wound movements and then they gave way to both hand wound and automatic movements. Many Schild movements became the basis of much more complex movements, such as mechanical digital movements or full calendar movements with moon phases. However, Schild did not build these complications themselves. They were added on by specialist companies, such as Dubois Depraz .
There were only two notable exceptions during the career of the A.Schild company: the Chronostop, a movement with some aspects of a chronograph, which was not successful and soon taken out of production, and the A.Schild alarm movement series. The A.Schild alarm movement series, centering on the A.Schild 1478 and 1568 was extremely successful. So successful, in fact that it spawned many copies, none of which ever approached the original in quality and durability.
The A.Schild 1568
The Schild company did not invent the alarm wrist watch or the alarm watch. The alarm watch itself had been around since the beginning of the watch, with some of the very oldest watches know, so-called "Nuremberg Eggs" incorporating alarms.
Several companies started manufacturing various alarm wrist watches at the end of the 1940s, but they were costly, for the most part, and did not win wide acceptance. There were also questions about their robustness. At the beginning of the 1960s, The Schild company designed its own alarm movement and put it on the market. This was the 1478, which was soon followed by the 1568, a variant with a date in a window that is used by Horae in their Voyager watch.
Perhaps the Schild company itself was surprised by the success of this movement, but it's economical cost, its firm reliability and its loud, cheerful sound made it an instant hit. A Boom in alarm watches resulted with many makers piling into the market, but the Schild company's model dominated the field.
Designed around two mainsprings, it was logical to use and easy to set. The bottom crown was used to wind the time up. In of itself, the 1568 is a very accurate watch. The upper crown is used to wind the alarm mechanism, which functions independently of the time mechanism. There are actually two mainsprings in this watch connected to two different gear trains, the time train and the alarm mechanism that operate independently of each other and are completely autonomous. This is perhaps the brilliance of the Schild movement. Although built somewhat like an alarm clock with two independent mechanisms in one, it sacrifices nothing of miniaturization while maintaining complete function
The AS 1568 continued in production up almost until the 1980s which, in the face of the quartz crisis, the Schild company merged with a number of other makers and so disappeared.
The AS 1568 and its sister movement, the AS 1478 (time only, no calendar) remain the two most sought after alarm movements today. Production ended in the early 1980s, and these movements have not been manufactured for over 25 years.
Horae was fortunate enough to discover 200 of these fine movements in totally unused, disassembled condition, plus spare parts. Thus the Limited Series "Voyager" was born. They have been carefully assembled and timed, and although they are now a classic movement, they are in totally new , unused condition. When this series of 200 movements has run out, the Voyager series will come to an end. There are no more of these movements available, and each series within Voyager, be it the Classic, the Liverani or the Himalayan series is limited to only a few watches in each series, usually no more than 40 or 50 pieces each.
Truly, these are limited series within the limited series itself.