watch-for-sale

The Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph Silicon Escapement comes with a brown alligator leather strap with an 18-karat clasp, and it is priced at $37,800.

Finally, the firm introduced a wholly new tourbillon called the Exo-Tourbillon Chronographe in which the balance has been separated from the cage to isolate it from the disturbing movements of the escapement. This separation made it possible to create the world’s first tourbillon in which the rotating cage is smaller than the balance, which oscillates outside the cage and on a higher plane.

Also developed at the firm’s Institute Minerva, this groundbreaking tourbillon model boasts a column-wheel chronograph (based on Minerva’s wonderful caliber 16.60) and a regulator layout. To be made in limited editions of eight in two types of gold and one edition in platinum, the Exo-Tourbillon Chronographe will likely be the subject of as much discussion in the near future as the Metamorphosis. In fact, we’ll write more about both these models in a future issue.

But as soon as the slide is activated (moving it down, from ten to eight), the watch begins its transformation within about fifteen seconds. Four wings on the lower half of the dial open slide under one another and finally disappear horizontally beneath the dial’s middle section. A similar sequence happens on the subdial at 12. After all the wings have opened, a subdial rises at the 6 o’clock position, and an aperture in this rising disk subsumes the date hand. The new disk is the minute counter for the chronograph. The 47mm white gold watch is hand wound and has a power reserve of 55 hours. It is a limited edition of 28 pieces, each priced at $263,100.

The Metamorphosis is the brainchild of Johnny Girardin and Franck Orny. Girardin is a movement maker and engineer who has worked for various manufactories, and Orny is a construction engineer specializing in watch manufacturing. These two specialists developed the ideas that enabled them to construct something entirely new on the basis of the Minerva chronograph calibre MB/M16.29.

Simply stated, by moving a slide down or up, Metamorphosis changes from a watch with hours, minutes and seconds display to a chronograph right before your eyes. Prior to its transformation, a subdial with a lone hour hand occupies the 12 o’colck position on the dial, while a retrograde minute hand sweeps between eight and four from the center of the main dial. A large second hand shares the central axis. A date display is located at 6 o’clock.