Vagabondage II, Pink Gold

Introduced in 2010, the Vagabondage II was then the most audacious project FP Journe had undertaken. Where the comparably complex Resonance was developed over the course of approximately 10 years, the Vagabondage II took 15, in bursts. This incredibly unique smoked-sapphire dial, a mechanical digital time display, is a function of movement design embellished by an artist’s hand. While the Vagabondage II and Lange’s Zeitwerk debuted within one year of each other, both manufactures had been working on their projects independently for years prior—both arriving at a ‘time bridge’ separately (although Lange’s project took a team, the Vagabondage II came from one mind). FP Journe’s case, however, was nearly half as thin. Within the trilogy of FP Journe’s Vagabondage series, the II is comparatively restrained relative to the hyper-active III. It is also a genuine world first, where the complication underpinning the Vagabondage I had been seen before. The middle child is often overlooked, but the Vagabondage II is a relatively pure and beautiful technical tour-de-force which underscored the genius in FP Journe’s experimental side. 

The Vagabondage story starts not in 2010 but in 1995, when a Parisian collector commissioned a young François-Paul Journe—then still a restorer taking on one-offs—to build a wandering-hours wristwatch. A large maison, widely rumored to have been Cartier, expressed interest in the project and then, as these things occasionally go, withdrew. The prototype movement went into a drawer for the better part of a decade. In 2003 Antiquorum came calling, asking Journe to contribute a unique piece to the ICM Foundation charity sale marking the auctioneer's thirtieth anniversary, with a runway of six months. There was no time to start from scratch, and Journe reached back into the drawer. He produced not one but three pieces for the sale—yellow, rose, and white gold cases atop brass movements—and all three hammered at roughly three times their estimates. That reception is what convinced him to formalize the experiment. The Vagabondage I, a limited series of 69 platinum and 68 rose-gold pieces, followed shortly thereafter. The II would wait until 2010. The name, as French horological names tend to be, is doing quiet work. Vagabondage translates loosely as vagrancy, wandering, a roaming about — a sideways pointer at the complication itself, which watchmakers have long called heures errantes, or wandering hours. Not incidentally, the Flat Tortue silhouette is itself a vestige of that original Cartier flirtation, and it is difficult to picture the shape looking better against any other dial.

Calibre 1509 carries digital jumping hours and digital jumping minutes across a horizontal register, small seconds at six, and a power reserve at twelve. The mechanical problem Journe set for himself was not a small one: driving two jumping digital indications at staggered intervals demands an enormous energy draw, and without countermeasures the balance would suffer a sharp drop in amplitude at every jump. His answer—arrived at independently, and at roughly the same moment A. Lange & Söhne solved an adjacent problem in the Zeitwerk—was to fit a remontoir d'égalité (a secondary constant-force mechanism that isolates the escapement from the mainspring and feeds it a steady, one-second pulse of energy). Where the Vagabondage I had been largely Journe's own hands in the workshop, the II is a product of his matured manufacture on the Rue de l'Arquebuse: the barrel, gear trains, jumping systems, and remontoir all made in-house under his direct supervision. ‘I even removed the logo,’ Journe has said of the Vagabondage, ‘because it was not necessary. And yet, even without the logo, everyone recognized that it was my work.’ Given that the dial carries no reference to FP Journe at all, this reads closer to a mission statement than a passing remark.

Total production of the Vagabondage II runs to 147 pieces: 69 in platinum with white gold windows and blued hands, 68 in pink gold with matching gold windows and hands, and a further 10 in platinum set with baguette diamonds. Retail at debut in 2010 was approximately USD 68,000, a number that raised eyebrows at the time. Hindsight, as usual, has been kind. More than a decade after the final initial deliveries, the Vagabondage II remains essentially without peer—a watch that thinks entirely independently as to how to display the passage of time. Daring, technically audacious, and entirely distinct in the market, it is FP Journe’s personality expressed in watchmaking fully. 

This Vagabondage II presents in excellent overall condition. The case bears only light signs of occasional use. There are a few superficial light hairlines, but no deep marks. Its calibre 1509 is running well in specification on our timing equipment, including all functions related to the digital scrolling of its discs. It comes with its box set, Guarantee document from FP Journe, pink gold deployant clasp, and original strap.

This example is modelled on an average-sized 7-inch wrist.