which kind of emphasizes how expensive watches really aren’t about telling time or being a watch, they’re about showing off how much money you have.
I think these knockoff watches from China are actually a lot more attractive. And the factory says they can knock out a half million of them a month.
It’s… not.
Here’s a very, very fancy watch from Jaeger LeCoultre. I would think it’s somewhere between $250K and $500K, possibly more. Not in my price range, to be sure! But I think the differences between it and the Richard Mille skull garbage watch, both aesthetically and in terms of mechanical engineering, are quite obvious:
“This masterpiece of precision and rarity boasts three of the most emblematic complications; namely a constant force Gyrotourbillon®, a minute repeater with a Westminster chime that reproduces four melodies on the wrist, and a perpetual calendar that adjusts itself in both directions.”
That is – pretty awesome, if you’re a watch geek, heh. Any ONE of those features is top-top-tier mechanical watchmaking. Three in one is frankly, an engineering marvel, a literal masterpiece of craftsmanship. The Richard Mille watch has – a lot of industrially-produced blue sapphire, and a skull. Hmmm…
Seriously though, supposedly it has some piece carved from a single chunk of sapphire, which adds some expense, even though that bit also looks like cheap plastic. (And may actually be cheap plastic in reality. Who’s going to tear apart their $2.5 million watch to find out?)
Hilarious.
You are only partially right.
SINGLE AXIS tourbillons are indeed useless on a wristwatch.
Double and triple axis ones can actually make a difference, however it is negligible.
I know this because I’ve spoken with one of the world’s experts on multi axis tourbillons, Stephen Forsey of Greubel Forsey, when I was a watchmaking student.
That said this watch does indeed look really ugly, and I would never spend that kind of money on this, but I will say the technology used to ultrasonically machine the sapphire case is really incredible.
I say this as someone who is trying to make a watch from scratch- no one needs a mechanical watch in this day and age. Its purely art luxury.
Some pathologies are more obvious than others.
The canonical cite for this bit of wisdom is
which account? “Loafer_connoisseur”, or “Billionaires”?
And here is a Richard Mille watch in clear sapphire. I surmise that the point of such a watch is to reveal the entire mechanism.
Blue sapphire negates the novelty of the RM056.
You know what you can do with that watch?
Is there an upmarket reboot of Pulp Fiction coming out or something?
Sapphire edition, apparently.
Fair enough,but it’s still something that’s mostly just there to show that the watchmaker can do it and add a couple figures to the price tag, most certified chronographs don’t have them so they can’t possibly do much.
The chronograph mechanism on some watches uses an independent balance that vibrates at its own frequency and would not even be affected by a tourbillon.
The fact that any watch being a certified chronometer means anything is actually kind of a joke.
“certified chronometer” is actually just another thing watch companies slap on the front of a watch to sell them to rubes, who think that they are more accurate.
Last I checked, COSC “chronometer certified” mechanical watches were allowed a fairly wide range of timing, -4 to +6 seconds a day. The delta value (max difference between timing in any position) being 10 seconds.
Sorry, but to me, that’s huge.
The fact that they go through a test is nice but this is really just to give the watch has some sort of known accuracy and precision under a named test. It is meant for large amounts of watches to pass.
To me, a truely accurate mechanical watch doesn’t put extra words on the dial to fool gullible idiots who buy marketing, and is adjusted properly. A good adjuster should be able to get a watch to around +1 second a day, with a delta value in 8 positions to around 3 or 4 seconds a day with a careful service. I was able to do this as a student, and so were some others. A seriously skilled adjuster can halve that if they are very, very good. Most watch services are done around COSC standards, but with a lower delta value, as 10 is pretty damn high.
Tourbillions that most people see have become rather easy to make compared to traditional hand manufacturer because CNC can easily machine most of the cage regardless of its design and the only difficult thing left is hand finishing the cage and assembly/oiling. There are people who still hand make them and that takes serious skill, but its chronometrically unneeded in a wristwatch, unless its multi axis.
That said- any pocket watch worn frequently will absolutely benefit from a well-executed tourbillion. They make a difference in those, because they are normally in only one position- crown up, vertical in a pocket.
The Maginot Line of watches.
Well, yeah. Any watch that expensive is going to be a gaudy gimmick meant for conspicuous consumption only. And yes, it does look like a Burger King one.
At least the Maginot Line actually looked impressive, but here all the time and effort were only intended to make it look good, at which it all totally failed.
I suspect that most buyers of $2.5 million watches are either handling them very carefully or letting them get deliberately destroyed because only proles wear the same luxury goods twice; but if anyone has a lead on cheap plastic that can pass for bulk aluminum oxide in nondestructive testing I’ll take ten. Of the plastic, of course.
That would be a material to reckon with.
Kind of weird that such luxury goods appear only in technically inept shots on instagram.
Looks like a Terminator movie promo watch.
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