Montre à Tact In Parisian society at the end of the 18th century it was very impolite during a conversation to take out a pocket watch and glance at the dial to read the time. A.L. Breguet decided to end this misery and in 1796 developed his "montre à tact" or the "tactful" watch. His watch had protruding hour markers and could be touched within the pocket to "feel" the time. Walter Haselberger and Svend Andersen developed their version of a ?tactful? watch for the modern gentleman. It allows time to be read in a discrete manner without an impolite twist of the wrist. Svend Andersen Born in 1942 in Denmark, Andersen is called the "Watchmaker of the Impossible". With a diploma from the Danish Watchmaker School, part of the Royal Technological Institute of Copenhagen, in 1963 he went to Switzerland to learn how the best watches were produced. After working for Gübelin for several years, in 1969 he joined Patek Philippe's "Atelier of Complications" under the direction of the famous Max Berney, who had more than 45 years of experience with the company. In 1979 Andersen finally set up his own workshop, and since then has created high quality, unusual, and complicated timepieces. In 1984, together with Vincent Calabrese, he founded the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (Horological Academy of Independant Creators), an institution uniting more than 20 of the most ingenious independent watchmakers. The AHCI displays every year at the Basel Fair and its members are often the creative force behind the exceptional creations of the famous watch and clock manufacturers. Blue gold is an alloy made of 2 elements, pure yellow gold (Au) and iron (Fe). Once fused together, these 2 basic metals so essential in the history of mankind form an alloy of a striking metallic-white color. When heated, the iron molecules on the metal?s surface oxydize, producing a blue color. ?Blue gold? is an exclusive creation of Genevan jeweler Ludwig Muller.