Horizon Information Portal

e-branch

Home

My Account/Renew Loans

Find Magazine Articles & more

Item Information

		Copy / Holding Information
		Booklist Review
		Publisher Weekly Review
		Table of Contents
		More Content


	More by this author
		Perman, Stacy.

	Subjects
		Packard, James Ward, 1863-1928.
		Graves, Henry, 1868-1953.
		Pocket watches -- Design and construction -- History -- 20th century.
		Clocks and watches -- History.
		Industrialists -- United States -- Biography.
		United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

	Browse Catalog
		by author:
		Perman, Stacy.

		by title:
		A grand complication...

		by call number:
		338.092 P451g

	Search the Web
		Perman, Stacy.
		Packard, James Ward, 1863-1928.
		Graves, Henry, 1868-1953.
		Pocket watches -- Design and construction -- History -- 20th century.
		Clocks and watches -- History.
		Industrialists -- United States -- Biography.
		United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.


	MARC Display

A grand complication : the race to build the world's most legendary watch / Stacy Perman.

by Perman, Stacy.

View full image

Atria Books, 2013.

Packard, James Ward, 1863-1928.

Graves, Henry, 1868-1953.

Pocket watches -- Design and construction -- History -- 20th century.

Clocks and watches -- History.

Industrialists -- United States -- Biography.

United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

9781439190081 (hbk.)

1439190089 (hbk.)

1st Atria Books hardcover ed.

viii, 343 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 24 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 328-330) and index.

Lot 7 -- The first tick -- A shining light -- Esse Quam Videri -- Mr. Packard's horseless carriage -- Ask the man who owns one -- Eagle Island -- The collector -- Acceleration -- Vallee de joux -- A gentleman's war -- Time stop -- The final windup -- Game over -- Across the sea -- The James W. Packard Collection of Unusual and Complicated Watches -- A supercomplication -- Age of quartz -- Collecting time -- Back in time -- The comeback -- The final gavel.

Two wealthy, powerful men engage in a decades-long contest to create and possess the most remarkable watch in history. James Ward Packard of Warren, Ohio, was an entrepreneur and a talented engineer of infinite curiosity, a self-made man who earned millions from his inventions, including the design and manufacture of America's first luxury car--the elegant and storied Packard. Henry Graves, Jr., was the very essence of blue-blooded refinement in the early 1900s: son of a Wall Street financier, a central figure in New York high society, and a connoisseur of beautiful things--especially fine watches. Then, as now, expensive watches were the ultimate sign of luxury and wealth, but in the early twentieth century the limitless ambition, wealth, and creativity of these two men pushed the boundaries of mathematics, astronomy, craftsmanship, technology, and physics to create ever more ingenious timepieces. In any watch, features beyond the display of hours, minutes, and seconds are known as "complications." Packard and Graves spurred acclaimed Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe to create the Mona Lisa of timepieces--a fabled watch that incorporated twenty-four complications and took nearly eight years to design and build. For the period, it was the most complicated watch ever created. For years it disappeared, but then it surfaced at a Sotheby's auction in 1999, touching off a heated bidding war, shattering all known records when it fetched $11 million from an anonymous bidder. "New York Times "bestselling author Stacy Perman takes us from the clubby world of New York high society into the ateliers of the greatest Swiss watchmakers, and into the high-octane, often secretive subculture of modern-day watch collecting. With meticulous research, vivid historical details, and a wealth of dynamic personalities, "A Grand Complication "is the fascinating story of the thrilling duel between two of the most intriguing men of the early twentieth century. Above all, it is a sweeping chronicle of innovation, the desire for beauty, and the lengths people will go to possess it.

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal