Parrenin 25

Description

Most probably in the 1950s, the french Parennin 25 was launched, a form movement with its long rectagular shape and its nominal size of 5 1/4 lignes. It was perfectly suitable for the fashionable small rectangular ladies’ watches of that time.

During its long production run (in 1976 it was listed as “discontinued”), at least the balance assembly was updated from a non shock protected screw balance to a shock protected anular balance without screws, and the one fixed hairspring stud was changed to a moveable stud.

On the more recent versions, the finishing level is lower, for example the gear train bridges have no anglage anymore, and the fit of the cap jewel plate is less precise.

All known versions have a total of 17 jewels, of which two of them are cap jewels of the movement side escape wheel and seconds wheel bearings.

The gear train is the common one of that type of movement: The mainspring barrel drives the rather large center minute wheel, followed by a pretty small third wheel, the very small seconds wheel and finally the large escape wheel.

Due to the lack of space, the lower seconds wheel bearing is above the escape wheel, so we have an 1 1/2 storey construction here.

The two leg balance, with or without screws, beats slowly with 18000 A/h and can be adjusted at the hairspring key only.

Of course, a swiss pallet lever escapement is used.

Being a good quality movement, the Parrenin 25 uses a yoke winding system.

Depending on the production time, the dial side balance wheel bearing has got either a shock protection or only a shortened cap jewel plate.

In the lab

Timegrapher result

The heavily used movement of the Adora ladies’ watch, on which the crystal is missing, now only shows signs of a water damage, but has also a slighly staggering balance. Because of this, the timegrapher shows, as to be expected, a poor performance.

Technical data

Usage gallery