Press Release No. 126

WINDING PATEK PHILIPPE'S SKY MOON TOURBILLON

Orbita Corporation has again proven its innovativeness, conquering what was considered to be an insurmountable watchwinder challenge by winding the world's most complicated watch.

Introduced in 2002, Patek Philippe's super complicated Sky Moon Tourbillon (PP#5002) was built on the foundation of the millennium year's incredible Star Caliber pocket watch.  Demonstrating the commitment of Patek Philippe to advancing the technical art of watch making, and priced at around $750,000, the Sky Moon Tourbillon is truly unique with 12 complications and two watch faces.

The first American owner of the #5002 learned that no manual winder was available from Patek that would keep his hand-wound watch wound and the prospect of resetting 12 individual complications should the watch ever stop was somewhat overwhelming to him.  He did discover, however, that many Patek watch owners, having the same need to keep their hand-wound Perpetual Calendar watches running, were already using Orbita's Sempre winder.  However, as the #5002 has the winding crown positioned not at 3 o'clock but at 4 o'clock, Patek did not think the standard Sempre could do the job given this unusual crown location and, in fact, they were correct.

However, himself a successful entrepreneur, the owner, Mr. Gerald Pulver, decided to take matters into his own hands.  He contacted Orbita directly, explained the problem, and challenged Orbita to resolve his dilemma.  Although a somewhat daunting prospect, as breaking the spring of the #4002 would be a catastrophe with repair costs by the original Swiss watchmaker in the region of $5,000 to $10,000, Chuck Agnoff, Orbita's president, rose to the occasion.  "No problem, we can do it" was his reply and immediately set to designing a special mount that would accommodate the massive #5002 case.  Using the watch dimensions supplied by the owner, he first built a wooden replica of the watch to test the fit and mounting position.  He sent the modified mount to Pulver to be sure the fit was correct.  With some back and forth tweaking, the final product was delivered just shy of three weeks from the beginning of the project and the custom-made Sempre is now operating perfectly and keeping the Sky Moon Tourbillon fully wound every day.

According to Gerald Pulver .... "It is a beautiful thing to see.  It has performed flawlessly ..."

According to Chuck Agnoff ... "The world recognizes the Swiss as leaders in watchmaking technology; maybe now Orbita has demonstrated that leadership in watchwinding technology."

For further information contact:

ORBITA Corporation    Tel: 910-256-5300 Fax: 910-256-5356

E-mail: info@orbita.com