The most famous Tudors of all

Rolex's sister brand, Tudor, was one of the hottest topics at Baselworld, especially among Americans. Rolex is relaunching Tudor in the United States in September after a 17-year absence. It’s part of a significant elevation and repositioning of the Tudor brand underway since 2010.

Rolex no longer treats Tudor like an inadequate stepsister, but as a bonafide brand in its own right. The clearest sign of that is that Rolex exhibited Tudor for the first time ever at Baselworld this year, with its own large booth right beside the big brand.

Tudor introduced four new products at Baselworld, but the star of the Tudor show was the Heritage Chrono Blue watch. Tudor calls it a “reinterpretation” of one of the most famous Tudors of all, the Montecarlo chronograph, launched 40 years ago and only produced for a few years.

The dial design is nearly a spitting image of the original, using the same tricolor combination of royal blue, gray (slightly lighter now), and orange. The date window at 6 o’clock is smaller and  the magnifier is gone. (Today’s Tudors no longer have magnifiers over the dates; that feature is now reserved for Rolexes.)

Chrono Blue keeps the Montecarlo’s two counters inside blue trapezoidal shapes, with the seconds hand at 3 o’clock and the 45-minute chronograph counter (typical of Tudor in the 1970s) at 9. New are the three-dimensional hour markers with two beveled metallic edges around a space filled with SuperLumiNova.

The steel case is larger than the original by 2 mm (a 42-mm diameter vs. 40 mm). It has a bidirectional bezel with a blue an- odized aluminum insert, and water resistance of 150 meters. The screw-down steel crown and pushers are knurled and have a chrome finish; the crown features the blue lacquered shield that is the Tudor emblem. The watch is powered by an ETA 2892, which has a 42-hour power reserve.

Chrono Blue comes with both a steel bracelet with a folding clasp and a reinforced blue/gray/orange fabric strap with a buckle. The suggested retail price is $4,425.

Swatch Sistem 51 Features

THIRTY YEARS AGO, when the Swatch brand debuted, it stunned the world with a quartz watch whose electronic move- ment had just 51 parts. The watch’s as- sembly was fully automated, no human hands required.

This year the mass-market brand that gave the Swatch Group its name has done it again. Exhibiting at Baselworld for the first time ever, Swatch arrived with a bang: a new watch called Sistem 51 with a movement consisting of just 51 parts. This time the movement is an automatic mechanical. “Most mechanical movements have at least twice as many parts,” Swatch proclaimed in a press statement. “Some have more than 600!” Moreover, it is the world’s first mechanical movement whose assembly is entirely automated.

At a press conference on Basel-world’s opening day, Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek said Swatch developed Sistem 51 “to show we [the Swatch Group] can be innovative at the lower end of the market.” Swatch says it filed 17 patents for Sistem 51. One of the watch’s innovations is the simplified, more efficient movement design with a structure that uses five modules for easy, automated assembly. The components are welded together, forming a single assembly centered on a single central screw.

Another innovation: the high-tech escapement has no regulator. The rate is set at the factory with a laser, eliminating the need for the manual rate adjustments normally required for a mechanical watch. All the movement components are hermetically sealed within the case, which prevents moisture and dust from interfering with the movement’s operation. Swatch says that the accuracy of 90 percent of the watches will be within +/-5 seconds per day.

The movement is made entirely of ARCAP, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc, which makes the watch exceptionally anti-magnetic, Swatch says. It has a transparent caseback, affording a view of the rotor, a transparent disk that rotates around the center screw. The movement has a power reserve of 90 hours. Everything in it, including its 19 synthetic rubies, is made in Switzerland.

Sistem 51 will have an affordable price, a Swatch signature feature, some-where around $150. The price will be “between 100 and 200 Swiss francs, closer to 100,” Hayek said. “We want to sell millions of this watch.” The watch will be out this fall.

Unconventional Harry Winston’s Opus XIII Features

WE’LL BEGIN WITH THIS: 242. That’s the number of functional rubies in the movement of Harry Winston’s Opus XIII. It’s a world record.

At first glance, one might reasonably ask “How do you read the time on this watch?” Small, silver, triangular hands (yes, there’s more than one) peek out from under the multi-faceted dome in the center of the dial to point out the hours. The minutes are indicated via tiny pivoting markers around the edge of the dial. Each five-minute marker has a red tip.

As a new minute begins, its marker pivots so it points toward the center of the dial. Once each hour, as the 59th minute ends, the minutes markers retract with a motion that resembles a stadium full of people doing the wave. There is no hour or minutes marker at 12, so there are 11 hour hands and 59 minutes markers. Each minutes marker pivots on its own shaft, which is jeweled at each end. That’s 118 jewels right there.

At 12 noon and again at midnight, a disk at the center of the dial slides out of the way to reveal Harry Winston’s logo, which remains visible for one hour. The shutter slides on ruby ball bearings so tiny that the container holding them must be opened in a static-free environment to prevent them from flying away. Though they are high-precision components, they are so small that if dropped during assembly, the watchmakers do not look for them.

The watchmaker behind the Opus XIII is Ludovic Ballouard, and his specialty is working with springs and controlling energy. Before becoming a watchmaker, he was a technician working on airplane control panels. As a watchmaker, before launching his own brand, he worked with F.P. Journe, helping develop the Grande Sonnerie.

The Opus XIII display is powered by twin barrels. One drives the escapement. The other powers the minutes display. An outer ring jumps forward once each minute, released then locked by a rocking lever with two pallet stones. Each minutes  marker is held in position by a small spring, and all 59 of these springs are part of a single metal piece. A peg on the advancing ring slides between the spring and minutes marker, rotating the marker 40 de- grees, causing it to reveal itself at the edge of the dial. At the end of the 59th minute, a second outer ring rotates, returning the minutes markers to their original positions with the aforementioned wave-like motion.

The hours mechanism incorporates an outer ring that jumps forward every 60 minutes, simultaneously turning the expiring hour’s triangle 180 degrees to hide it beneath the faceted dome, and pivoting the next hour marker so it appears on the dial. Though the movement is quite complex, it is a slender 4.95 mm high.

A total of 130 pieces will be produced without diamonds, priced at $298,000. An additional 20 pieces will be produced, 10 with baguette diamonds and 10 with brilliant-cut diamonds. The diamond versions can be customized; their prices will depend on what features are requested.

Hublot Ferrari Watch Limited Edition Features

HUBLOT’S RECENT LICENSE deal with Ferrari has spawned an attention- getting new watch, the record-breaking MP-05 LaFerrari.

Inspired by the 950-hp Ferrari supercar of the same name, Hublot’s headliner for 2013 boasts a power reserve of 50 days. In order to achieve this, it has 11 barrels, all lined up vertically at the center of the watch and visible through the front of the case. The barrels are interconnected in series coupling, so their charge is not expended one-by-one. In addition to the 11 barrels and the power reserve, the LaFerrari also has a suspended vertical tourbillon and the highest number of components in any Hublot watch to date (637).

The watch shows the time in an unconventional way. Hours and minutes are displayed in white Super-LumiNova
on two rotating anodized black alu- minum cylinders to the right of the barrels. Seconds appear on a slim cylinder at the bottom of the dial. On the left of the barrels, opposite the time, two more cylinders indicate the remaining power reserve. The watch is manually wound.

Looking at the watch head-on, you may be reminded of the engine of an F1-influenced Italian racer. The tapered case requires a uniquely shaped sapphire crystal. The streamlining narrows the watch from what would normally be 12 o’clock (where the inset winding crown is located) to the 6 o’clock position (where the seconds display is visible and, from the side, the tourbillon, with its 14.5-mm cage).

Time-setting is performed via a hid- den crown underneath the case and beside the see-through caseback. To completely charge the 50-day reserve, however, it would take more than a couple of casual turns of a crown. To that end, Hublot includes a small device that looks like a power drill. By fitting it into the hexagonal port that serves as a crown at the top of the watch, you can wind the device up to its full charge much more efficiently.

The case is made of titanium with a black PVD coating. It features accents like the titanium and carbon insert at the top of the watch, leading to the winding crown. The watch comes on a black rubber strap with a PVD titanium buckle. The MP-05 LaFerrari is being produced in a limited edition of 50 pieces. It is priced at $345,000.

Arnold & Son Innovative Watches

ONE OF THE MOST talked-about brands at Baselworld this year was Arnold & Son, which introduced several innovative watches. (It was the brand’s first Basel- world since being acquired by Japan’s Citizen Group last year.)

Among the new models was the UTTE watch (Ultra-Thin Tourbillon Escapement). The first tourbillon in Arnold & Son’s Instrument collection, the UTTE is also a record-breaker: just 8.34 mm thick, it is, the brand says, the thinnest hand-wound tourbillon watch in the world.

The UTTE has a diameter of 42 mm and its movement is just 2.97 mm thick. The UTTE contains the A&S8200 movement, a manu- facture caliber. This manual winding movement has a power reserve of 80 hours thanks to its two barrels.

The movement is 32 mm in diameter and the tourbillon cage 14 mm, so that the one-minute tourbillon has pride of place on the dial, beneath the off-center display with hours and minutes.
Although the watch is thin, its design manages to emphasize depth.

The tourbillon cage is rounded with no edges, and rather than being inset flat into the movement, it extends upward to the same level as the hands. All visible screws have been removed in order to emphasize this perfect circle. The cage is satin-finished with chamfered and polished edges. The nickel-silver movement has other decorations, including beveled and mirror-polished heads on all screws and hand-chamfering on all of the bridges. The case is 42 mm in diameter, and it is water resistant to 30 meters.

Arnold & Son is releasing the UTTE in two versions. For the rose-gold ver- sion, the movement is rhodium treated and has a côtes de Genève rayonnantes decoration, and the bridge for the tour- billon is completely hand-engraved.

The other version, in palladium, has a gray NAC treatment on the movement and straight côtes de Genève. Each version will be produced in a limited edition of 50 pieces. The watch comes on a hand- stitched alligator strap and has a trans- parent caseback. The rose-gold UTTE is priced at $70,185 and the palladium version is $61,075.

Girard-Perregaux Constant Escapement Watch Features

Girard-Perregaux unveiled a new invention: a constant force escapement incorporating a thin blade that flexes back and forth. This year, the brand unveiled a watch containing the de- vice. Those who have been waiting for the watch were not disappointed: the consensus among the watch cognoscenti was that it was a highlight of the show.

At the heart of every mechanical watch there is a regulating organ, typically a balance wheel and hairspring, which manages the rate at which the energy from the barrel is released. The more accurately the regulating organ releases the energy, the more accurately the watch keeps time.

The lever escapement, which transmits the mainspring’s energy to the balance wheel, is an engineering marvel, but it has an Achilles’ heel: it can only send the balance wheel the energy it receives, and that energy diminishes as the mainspring winds down, which affects timekeeping accuracy. In a typical wristwatch, the bal- ance wheel’s amplitude can vary by up to 60 degrees as the energy it receives declines.

Some watchmakers seek to improve accuracy by stopping the movement when the power reserve nears its end. A few  have incorporated a remontoir d’egalité – an ancient invention in which a spring is periodically armed or charged with the goal of delivering regular or constant force (impulses) to the balance, regardless of how much energy the spring receives.

That the spring remontoir dates from John Harrison’s work on the marine chronometer H2 in 1739 illustrates both how important constant force is to timekeeping accuracy and how long horologists have been employing springs to achieve it. Earlier remontoir systems date to the 1500s.

G-P’s escapement takes a new approach – one that depends on watchmaking’s wonder material, silicon. Like earlier constructions, G-P’s adds an intermediate spring that stores and releases energy; however, the spring’s form is entirely new. The spring is a 14-micron-thick silicon blade – that’s one-sixth the diameter of a human hair. The blade is formed in one piece with, and at- tached at each end to, a butterfly-shaped silicon frame.

G-P’s watchmakers worked with physicists at the Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) in Neuchâtel to calculate the ideal blade characteristics. In the center of the blade, and integral with it, is an arming lever through which energy is delivered to the blade. Twin escape wheels, each with three smooth “teeth” that look more like modified snail cams than the typical jagged-edge disks, give impulses to jewels on the arming lever. The blade changes shape as it absorbs the energy, then snaps back, delivering a consis- tent impulse to the balance wheel.

The watch itself, called the Constant Escapement, is 48 mm in diameter. The balance wheel and escapement occupy most of the lower half of the face under- neath three small bridges with distinctive Girard-Perregaux arrow-shaped ends. The case is white gold. Price: $123,500

Bovet new limited-edition watch

Bovet has added one new limited-edition watch to its Dimier collection. This year’s introduction is the Récital 10, which combines characteristics of two previous watches in the line: the Récital 1 and the Récital 0.

The Roman-numeral hour markers and the serpentine hour and minutes hands are drawn from the Récital 1, and the tourbillon design is a feature of the Récital 0. The watch contains Caliber 15BM03, a hand- wound 21,600-vph movement with a seven-day power reserve. The tourbillon sits in a 13.5-mm cage, with distinctive bridges crossing it, also taken from the Récital 0. The case is 45 mm in diameter and 12.8 mm thick.

It has a transparent back that shows two partial bridges shaped like those in the earlier Récital watches. The watch has a rose-gold case (there is also a white-gold model) and has a hand-stitched alligator strap. Price: $172,500.

Antoine Meier Caliber Watch Features

IN 2012, this young brand, founded by watchmaker Martin Braun and businessman Antoine Meier, introduced a manual- wound watch containing the in-house Caliber AM 39.001, which features a perpetual calendar and a large balance.

This year, the brand brought out an open-dial version of the watch, the Quantième Perpétuel au Grand Balancier Open Dial. Four openings around the dial and one at its center reveal the movement in all its glory.

The watch features a 24-hour display with day/night indication at 9 o’clock, big date just below the central axis, leap year at 12 o’clock, and month and day on either side of the Antoine Martin logo. The 60-jewel movement beats at 18,000 vph and is regulated in five positions.

It boasts a free-sprung balance and what the brand calls a “High-Performance Escapement,” or HPE, which has a lever and escape wheel made of silicon. The escape-wheel teeth and the pallets are shaped differently from those in a traditional Swiss lever escapement and increase the mechanism’s efficiency, the company says.

A power-reserve display in the cut out stainless-steel caseback tells you how much of the six-day charge has been depleted. (Also visible from the back: the extra-large titanium balance wheel.) The case is made of stainless steel with a combination of polished and satin finishes. The bezel has a DLC coating. The watch comes on a black rubber strap with deployant buckle. The price is $44,500.

RGM Caliber 20 Watch Review

IN 1992, an independent watchmaker set up shop in Lancaster County, Penn., and began writing a new chapter in America’s horological history. Twenty years later, that chapter had become a book, and last year Roland Murphy celebrated his first two decades with his third in-house movement, known as Caliber 20. At this year’s Geneva Time Exhibition, Murphy revealed his fully formed vision: Caliber 20 cased up and ready to go.

Murphy endows each of his in-house movements with a symbolic name. His first, Caliber 801, was taken from his company’s location in a former bank building at 801 West Main Street in Mount Joy, Penn. His second, the Pennsylvania Tourbillon, requires no explanation. Caliber 20 of course represents his 20th anniversary, and it’s not just a pretty face; it’s powered by a little-known American contribution to fine watch- making.

During the horological Jurassic period when large American railroad-grade pocketwatches ruled the planet, some of the finest, made by Hamilton and Illinois, incorporated an American invention known as the motor barrel. The barrel’s design represented an important advance – one that was almost lost to time.

In a movement, the mainspring barrel is where torque and friction are at their highest. The motor barrel fights these forces of evil with jewels and a modified construction. In a motor barrel, the barrel arbor is jeweled to the plate and bridge and to the barrel case as well. Murphy says the result allows the main- spring barrel to function more like a normal wheel turning between jewels. Murphy also fixes part of the arbor to the barrel, increasing stability. When he restores 100-year-old pocketwatches with motor barrels, Murphy says he finds no significant wear.

The rest of Caliber 20 lives up to the motor barrel’s standards. The move- ment, which is manually wound, runs in 22 jewels at a classic 18,000 vph. The mainplate and bridges are German silver with hand-applied anglage, circular côtes de Genève and perlage. The bridges have lyrical shapes with inside angles that highlight the craftsman’s skill. The open space between the bridges reveals an oversize screwed balance.

On the other side, the solid silver dial is available in skeletonized (shown) and full guilloché versions, both created by RGM. Blued steel hands with keystone- shaped tips – unique to RGM – indicate the hours and minutes. A rotating disk in the dial’s top right corner marks the passing seconds, while in the lower left corner, a precise moon-phase indicator with blue accents tracks the lunar phases. The polished stainless-steel case, also made in the RGM atelier, measures 42.5 by 38.5 by 9.7 mm, with sapphire crys- tals front and back.

Available on a brown or black Louisiana alligator strap, Caliber 20 starts at $19,500, and, like most of Murphy’s creations, it can be customized.

F.P. Journe Limited Edition Features

MANY PERPETUAL calendars are hard to read and even harder to set. F.P. Journe’s new perpetual calendar, the Quantième Perpétuel Octa, is not guilty on either count, the company says.

The day, month and date are easy to read in prominent apertures. The day and date can be set simply by turning the crown in one direction; the day alone by pulling the crown out to the second position and turning it in the other direction.

You can adjust the indicators for the month and the number of years since the last leap year using a hidden lever beneath the lug at 1 o’clock. The latter piece of information is shown by a small, discreet, center- mounted hand that points to the
numerals “1” through “4.” The calendar displays jump instanta- neously at midnight.

The movement is a variation on Caliber 1300.3, the base caliber on which all the complications in the Octa collection are constructed. It has an off-center, 22k-rose- gold rotor and a power reserve of 120 hours.

The watch will be manufactured in a limited series of 900 pieces. It replaces the Octa Calendrier with annual calendar, which after this year will no longer be manufactured. There are two case sizes, 40 mm and 42 mm, and two materials, gold and platinum. The watch comes in strap and bracelet versions. Prices range from $69,020 to $124,020.

Van Cleef Extraordinaires Watches

THANKS TO a double retrograde movement, the dancer on Van Cleef & Arpels’s new Ballerine Enchantée is able to tell the time on demand.

When the wearer pushes a button at 8 o’clock, two wing-like veils on the dancer’s tutu lift up and point to the correct hour (on the left) and minute (right) on two retrograde arcs. The veils remain suspended for four seconds, then lower to their original position.

The watch ($141,000) is part of the brand’s Poetic Complication series, which features complicated watches that carry ro- mantic or fantasy themes.

Van Cleef introduced several other fanciful watches, all with painstakingly crafted dials with whimsical pictures. Among them are new Charms Extraordinaires watches, which have small charms dangling from their bezels.

The one shown here, the Muguet, is set with diamonds and yellow sapphires. The movement is quartz. The background of the fairy painting is sculpted mother-of-pearl.

The watch is a limited edition of 22 pieces ($75,000).
There are also new series of butterfly- and kite-motif watches. The strawberry- and-butterfly watch shown here, called Papillon Rouge Gourmand ($113,000), incorporates three types of enameling.

The kite watch, Cerf-Volant Cyan ($92,000), features a miniature painting on a sculpted mother-of-pearl background. Both have mechanical movements and are being made in limited series of 22 pieces.

Vacheron Constantin New Ladies Watch

FOR VACHERON CONSTANTIN, 2013 is the Year of the Woman. The company reinforced the point at SIHH by showing no new men’s watches. Instead, it offered new models for women in three collections: manual-wind and automatic watches in Patrimony; quartz watches in Malte; and manual-wind in a new series of Métiers d’Art watches called Flo- rilège.

Why such a strong ladies’-watch statement? “We are moving from quartz to mechanical for ladies,” Vacheron Constantin CEO Juan-Carlos Torres told WatchTime. “A lot of ladies are asking for a mechanical watch. It’s happening all around the world, and especially in America. We now have more production capacity so we can give mechanical movements to ladies. We were not able to before.” Torres says Vacheron will continue to produce some ladies’ quartz watches, but quartz pieces will represent just five percent, or less, of VC’s total output. “We don’t have it in mind to launch a Twenty-4 line,” he said with a laugh, referring to Patek Philippe’s popular, quartz-watch collection for ladies.

The headliners of the new ladies’ watches are those in the all-mechanical Patrimony collection, the brand’s pillar. Vacheron introduced manual-wind models in the Patrimony Traditionnelle and self-winding models in the Patrimony Contemporaine series. All of the new ladies’ Patrimony watches bear the Geneva Seal, a quality mark which, since 2011, extends to the entire watch, not just the movement. Vacheron’s intention with the new ladies’ Patrimony watches, Torres says, is to show that “the lady is treated the same as a man in terms of having the opportunity to own a strong mechanical watch.”

The Patrimony Traditionnelle Lady manual-winding watch, shown here, contains Vacheron’s manufacture Caliber 1400. The watch has a white-gold or rose-gold case, which is 33 mm in di- ameter and 7.65 mm thick and has a transparent sapphire back. Around the bezel are 54 round-cut diamonds, totaling approximately 0.88 ct. The watch has an alligator leather strap with gold buckle. The suggested retail price is $26,600 in either white or rose gold. A slightly larger, high-jewelry version of the watch comes in white gold with 124 baguette diamonds on the case and 156 baguette diamonds on the dial ($335,700).

New Roger Dubuis’s Excalibur collection

There are several new additions to Roger Dubuis’s Excalibur collection, distinguished by its notched bezel and elongated Roman numerals.

One is the Excalibur 42 Automatic Chronograph, with a new, in-house movement, Caliber RD 681, which shows small seconds at 9 o’clock and has a 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock. It has column-wheel switching. The watch is $26,700 in a steel case on a strap, $31,700 in steel with a bracelet, and $43,100 with a rose-gold case on a strap.

Another new model is the Excalibur 42 Automatic, which also has a new move- ment, the RD 640. Like the chronograph, it has a microrotor. The watch is $15,400 with a steel case on a strap, $20,500 with steel case and bracelet, $27,400 in rose gold on a strap and $54,400 in rose gold on a bracelet.

World Timer Jean Todt Limited Edition

THE TOURBILLON World Timer Jean Todt Limited Edition has an especially easy setting mechanism for its world time function. In order to see the time in a second time zone, the wearer only has to turn the bezel counterclockwise until the desired time zone’s city is at 12 o’clock.

The new time is set automatically. The bezel is connected to the movement with a special gear train, and therefore acts directly on the hour wheel, adjusting the hand accordingly. The 24 hour markers on the flange indicate the time in other cities and whether it is day or night.

The watch has another notable feature: a 10-day power reserve, made possible by two consecutively fitted barrels. The power-reserve indicator is at 2 o’clock. Named after Jean Todt, president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (the regulating body for Formula 1 racing), the watch has a 50- mm case, made from titanium with rose gold on the fixed bezel, the caseback, and the lugs.

It contains Caliber RM58-01, which is manually wound. Its bridges and base plate are made of titanium. The tourbillon is at 9 o’clock. The watch is being produced in a limited edition of 35 pieces and costs $620,000.

Ralph Lauren Tourbillon Watches

THIS BRAND BROUGHT out its first tourbillon watch at SIHH: the RL67 Tourbillon. The movement, made for Ralph Lauren by the Swiss manufacturer La Fabrique du Temps, is housed in a stainless-steel case with an uneven gun metal finish meant to give the watch a casual, outdoorsy look.

The finish is the result of chemical and thermal treatments. Caliber RL67, which is automatic, features a micro-rotor visible through the caseback; the movement has a 38-hour power reserve and a frequency of 28,800 vph.

An oversize tourbillon bridge, designed especially for Ralph Lauren, crosses the tourbillon display between 4 and 8 o’clock. The watch, which is part of the brand’s Safari collection, has a brown alligator strap. It will be priced at about $55,000.

In its Sporting collection, the brand debuted the Ralph Lauren Sporting World Time. A city disk visible through an aperture at the bottom of the dial shows the names of 24 major cities. The wearer rotates the disk by turning the crown at 10 o’clock. Just above the city window is a second-time-zone subdial.

This subdial also features a day/night indicator at its 9 o’clock position. A date subdial lies between 2 and 3 o’clock. The RL939 movement has a 40-hour power reserve and a power-reserve indicator is found at 10 o’clock. A red sweep-seconds hand and Breguet-style hands for the hour and minutes complete the design.

The watch is water resistant to 100 meters and is 44.8 mm in diameter. Price: $9,500 (stainless steel); $16,000 (rose gold); and $18,800 (white gold).

Piaget Slim-Watch specialist

Slim-Watch specialist Piaget brought out some more record-breaking skinny watches at SIHH, adding to a long list of world’s-thinnest watches.

One is the Altiplano Date, which, at 6.36 mm thick, is the world’s thinnest automatic watch with date display, according to Piaget. Its movement, Caliber 1205, 3 mm thick, is the world’s thinnest automatic movement with date, Piaget says.

It is the 12th movement that Piaget has developed specifically for the ultra-thin Altiplano collection. The watch comes in white gold ($26,000), rose gold ($25,000) and rose gold set with dia- monds ($33,000). It is 40 mm in diameter.


Another record breaker is the Altiplano Automatic Gem-Set Skeleton. It contains the world’s thinnest automatic gem-set skeleton movement, Caliber 1200D, just 3 mm thick, and is itself the world’s thinnest automatic gem-set skeleton watch, at 6.10 mm thick.

The movement is adorned with 259 diamonds, weighing about 0.8 ct., and 11 tiny black sapphire cabochons that conceal the screw heads on the face of the watch. The bezel has 40 additional diamonds (weighing a total of 3.2 ct.) and the rest of the case has 347 of them, weighing 1.4 cts. The price is available on request.

A. Lange & Söhne Brand's Blockbuster

This Brand's Blockbuster introduction for SIHH 2013 was its Grand Complication but the company launched another highly complicated watch, the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar. It contains the new L101.1 caliber, a hand-wound movement with 636 components.

The L101.1 is the company’s eighth proprietary chronograph movement. The moonphase display, consisting of a solid gold disk bearing 410 stars, is so precise that it will be off by just one day in 122 years. The watch is 41.9 mm in diameter and 14.7 mm thick and comes in platinum ($213,000) and rose gold ($189,000).

The brand’s new watches also included the Grande Lange 1 Lumen, named for its luminous big date, time and power- reserve displays. Lange says it is the first watch with a luminous big date display, which was made possible by a special construction: a section of the dial is covered with sapphire coated with a material that blocks most light but allows the invisible UV spectrum to pass through it.

These UV rays charge the luminous material on the date-digits disks while they are beneath the sapphire window so that when the dig- its rotate into the date apertures, they are glowing brightly.

Lange used this principle in its Zeitwerk Luminous watch of 2010. The watch contains the L095.2 in- house, hand-wound movement, which was launched last year. The watch is 40.9 mm in diameter and has a platinum case. It is being produced in a limited edition of 200 pieces ($70,400).

Glashütte Original Pano LunarTourbillon features

Launched in 2000, Glashütte Original’s “Pano” line has, for many collectors, come to symbolize the brand. Last year, the company gave the line a mild redesign with slightly larger cases, thinner bezels, and subtle changes to the dial.

This year, GO added a tourbillon to the collection, the Pano LunarTourbillon. The PLT (as it will certainly come to be known) has a 40 mm by 13.1 mm rose-gold case.

The dial has the same asymmetrical layout as the brand’s PanoMatic Lunar model, except that the tourbillon has replaced the seconds subdial. GO says the dial layout is in harmony with the golden ratio, often represented as 1.6180329887. We’re not mathematicians, so we’ll take the company’s word for it.

The PLT is powered by Caliber 93-02, an automatic based on Caliber 93-01. The moon-phase display is integrated into the movement and is not a module.

Visible through a sapphire display back, the movement runs at 21,600 vph in 50 jewels (including two diamonds). The balance wheel has eight regulating screws and 12 weighted screws; the balance spring has a Breguet overcoil.

An off-center gold rotor winds a mainspring that provides a 48-hour power reserve. Water resistance is 50 meters. The package is completed by a semimatte Louisiana alligator strap in black or brown with a rose-gold clasp.

Breguet’s new thin tourbillon features

A new front has opened at the haute horlogerie end of the ultra-thin wars, this one to determine who can produce the slimmest tourbillon. Breguet’s new thin tourbillon, unveiled at Baselworld but not due out until next year, is the Classic Tourbillon Extra-Thin 5377BR, which comes in at a svelte 7 mm thick (and 42 mm in diameter).

The tourbillon carriage and balance wheel are titanium and the balance spring is silicon. The escapement (escape wheel and pallet lever) is silicon and anti-magnetic steel. The movement, protected by two patents, runs at 28,800 vph, and a single “high energy” barrel provides 90 hours of autonomy. To keep the automatic winding movement thin, the bidirectional platinum winding rotor has been placed at the edge of the movement.

The watch bears several of the brand’s aesthetic hallmarks. The case band is fluted, while the dial is decorated with four engine-turned patterns. Blued Breguet hands pass above Roman numerals. The power-reserve indicator hand is mounted at the edge of the dial between 8 and 9 o’clock.

Ball Watch Features

The new Engineer Hydrocarbon Space master Airborne from Ball Watch pays tribute to the United States Air Force Pararescue unit, whose logo and motto (“That Others May Live”) is engraved on the watch’s caseback. This special air- borne team is responsible for rescuing and providing medical assistance to soldiers engaged in military operations on the ground.

Ball designed the watch to withstand the extreme conditions under which the paratroopers operate. It features Ball’s new patented SpringLock anti-shock system designed to protect the watch’s COSC-certified automatic movement (ETA 2836-2).

The balance spring is protected by a cage that absorbs the energy created by external impacts. Such pounding can hurt the accuracy of a standard mechanical watch by 60 seconds a day, Ball says. The SpringLock system reduces the deleterious effects by 60 percent.

Other features of the watch are Ball’s patented crown protection system and protection against magnetic fields of up to 4,800 A/m and shocks of up to 5,000 Gs. Its 42-mm stainless-steel case is water resistant to 390 feet. The luminous unidirectional bezel is made of ceramic so it is highly resistant to corrosion, scratching, and UV rays.

The watch’s hour, minutes, and seconds hands and dial markers have a total of 31 micro gas tubes for night reading capability. The gas tubes are up to 100 times more effective than conventional luminescent paints, Ball says. The tubes are set on raised metal appliqués to ensure that the light is diffused effectively.