New Look for Faubourg de Cracovie by Czapek & Cie

The same original pattern, now on a blue dial.

Famous and lesser-known names from the past are revived time and time again in the watch industry. Why reinvent the wheel, when you can find the name of a real watchmaker from the last century in the archives? And in a certain sense, you can thrive on time-honored history. Breathing new life into truly important names in watchmaking does indeed attract genuine interest.

The success stories include the legacy of Ferdinand Berthoud, which has been given a new meaning thanks to Chopard Co-President Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, and the watches that bear the name of Franciszek Czapek — Antoni Patek's first partner at Patek, Czapek & Cie.

Czapek & Cie was the name given to the company after the split with Patek and the division of their business. A group of collectors began working to revive it in 2012, and four years later the “new” old brand received the Public Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) for its 33 bis Quai des Bergues model.

Their new model — the Faubourg de Cracovie Océan d’Or chronograph — is one of the watches from the brand's third collection. There's another historical reference in the name: the location of Czapek's third boutique, which he opened in 1850 in Warsaw. The watchmaker already had two other boutiques in Paris and Geneva.

The third collection in honor of the third boutique uses a third-generation watch movement. The first movement was manually wound with a full week of power reserve housed in the Quai des Bergues, and the second was a tourbillon movement with GMT function in the Place Vendôme (these names reference the first two boutiques).

The Faubourg de Cracovie features the SXH3 automatic chronograph movement with a 65-hour power reserve. The precision of the chronometer is certified by COSC. What sets the Océan d’Or versions apart is the choice of material for the 41.5 mm case.

They're the first two versions of the Faubourg de Cracovie chronograph in gold (8 pieces in rose gold and only 2 in yellow gold). Both of them have a blue guilloché “Résonance” dial. This is Czapek & Cie's signature pattern, which is said to have been designed by François (aka Franciszek) Czapek himself.