Gerhard Kremer (1512-1594), known as Mercator, was highly regarded as a mathematician and geographer due to his invention of the first navigational maps.

Vacheron Constantin saluted the 400th anniversary of his death with the very limited production of a pair of watch designs. Their hand-enamelled dial featured Mercator's own maps of the hemispheres as well as a pair of compass-like watch hands invented and built specially for these timepieces .