In the modern era of independent watchmaking, the names Greubel and Forsey certainly come to mind as some of the living leaders of the burgeoning independent scene. Not only do they simply make great watches, but their creations are true machines of time that are both aesthetically pleasing to the eye and maintain the highest chronometric performance especially with a tourbillon.
Although the tourbillon back in the 1800’s was truly a marvel of watchmaking technology invented by the godfather Abraham Louis Breguet, and important fact to remember is that it was originally made for the pocket watch. For modern wrist watches it has become more of a novelty to own a watch with a tourbillon mechanism and more likely than not doesn’t provide any real value in accurate timekeeping.
With over 10 watches currently being offered right now, each watch created is extremely limited in numbers and only 25 will ever be made of every iteration. The “Invention Piece Two” pictured here is one of their earlier works that comes equipped with two tourbillon mechanisms both inclined at a 30 degree angle. The concept behind this is to further cancel out any imperfections of balance wheel rotations while each full rotation takes only a mere 30 seconds.
By having two balance wheels mounted in tourbillons, not only will the rate of accuracy significantly improve beyond COSC standards, but now gravity will no long be a lingering issue on all balance wheel parts. In most tests the watch will only lose 2 seconds per day in comparison to the usual 4-5 seconds with most tourbillon based wrist watches.
Beyond the chronometric performance, Greubel Forsey is also most well known for their exceptional level of meticulous hand finishing on every last facet of the watch that combines different types of finishing techniques like frosting and relief engraving, a technique that is not as common as it once was in earlier watches.
The downside to all this beauty is not only the very limited production of each watch that can range anywhere from 10-25 watches depending on the model, but the very hefty price tag that averages to $750,000 USD and up.
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