Minerva 16-29

Calibres 17-29 and 16-29 are two closely-related chronograph movements from Minerva.

Both are based on Calibres 17-13 and 16-15 and feature a modular chronograph component.

Minerva built a pillar wheel chronograph in the basic 17 ligne base, called Calibre 17-29. It featured 60 second and 30 minute subdials along with small seconds. Calibre 17-29 had a diameter of 37.9 mm and a height of 5.85 mm with 17 jewels. Power reserve for the 18,000 A/h calibre was 33 hours.

Calibre 17-29 was based on the original calibre 17-13 movement.

On taking control of Minerva from the Frey family in 2000, the Minerva technical staff concluded that, although the old calibre design was still usable, it could not be produced with modern equipment. For this reason, the calibre was scanned and reconstructed in CAD for modern CNC machining.

As in the past, Minerva built a chronograph movement on the Minerva 16-15 base. Unlike Calibre 17-29, Calibre 16-29 has a column wheel mechanism and central seconds. It is a monopusher like the modern Minerva 13-21 but locates the pusher co-axially in the crown. This pusher operates a 60 second counter at 9 00 and 30 minute counter at the 3 00 position.

Calibre 16-29 has a diameter of 38.4 mm and consists of 252 handfinished parts.

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