Description

Unveiled at SIHH 2012 is the Greubel Forsey Tourbillon 24 Secondes Contemporain.

Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey are perhaps best known for their development of the tourbillon. Not content with its "traditional" arrangement, they stubbornly tinker with it, and in doing so have created some of the most innovative and exquisite tourbillon watches you are ever likely to see.

Equipped with a hand-wound movement with patented tourbillon, this timepiece has a power reserve of 72 hours. The main features of this model are 44.50 mm diameter case, convex synthetic sapphire crystal glass and case-back, and dial with multi-level synthetic sapphire hour-ring and gold indexes and hands (hour and minute).

Turning over the Tourbillon 24 Secondes Contemporain, three NAC-treated anthracite bridges can be glimpsed through the sapphire crystal display back, revealing the full extent of Greubel Forsey’s expertise in extremely fine hand-finishing: Mirror-polished bevels (many of which feature internal angles), mirror-polished countersinks, straight-graining and snailed decoration on the mainspring barrel. There are also discrete nods to tradition on this contemporary timepiece, for example the domed olive jewels and heat blued screws, which pay elegant homage to master watchmakers of the nineteenth century.

The movement comprises 268 components, 88 for the ultra?light 0.39-gram tourbillon cage alone, and is powered by two coaxial mainspring barrels in series providing an optimal power reserve of 72 hours. The oscillator, beating at 3Hz / 21,600 vibrations per hour, features a variable inertia balance with Phillips terminal curve.

The mainplate and bridges are in natural titanium and are hand-finished with straight-graining and mirror-polished bevels. Bridges in nickel silver with nickel-palladium finish are frosted and straight?grained with hand-polished bevels. The tourbillion bridge is in transparent synthetic sapphire while the tourbillon cage is in titanium. The hour and minute chapter ring is in synthetic sapphire while small seconds dial and power reserve indicator are in gold.