With the new Excellence Guilloché Main II, independent Swiss watchmaker Louis Erard adds a second watch with a hand crafted guilloché dial to its expanding series of limited edition models.
The new watch, featuring a stunning diamond pattern dial, follows last year’s Excellence Guilloché Main that features an equally dazzling three-dimensional check pattern guilloché dial. And while the newest watch in the series also spotlights its hand-wrought dial, it also marks the debut of a fully original Louis Erard design that has been realized by artisanal dial-maker Fehr in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Unlike the earlier Excellence Guilloche Main, the newer edition focuses all attention to the dial pattern in part without displaying the Louis Erard name on the dial, a choice that echoes the 2021 Excellence piece the Le Regulator Louis Erard x atelier oi.
A Fehr artisan creates the dial using guilloché, a decorative art that originated in the sixteenth century. The artisan guides a chisel by hand to repeat patterns determined with a manual lathe cam. For this dial the pattern depicts an opened-up diamond with black flat spaces framed by a black track of minutes/seconds markers.
Louis Erard notes that this second Excellence Guilloché Main watch was designed according to Louis Erard board member and watch industry veteran Manuel Emch’s request that the design is fully original, and to “enhance and modernize traditional guilloché.”
Indeed, Louis Erard customized the watch’s dial production from scratch, inventing and manufacturing new cams and finishing the dial “from the first black varnishing to the final rhodium plating after the guilloché,” according to the brand.
A limited series of 99 pieces, the Louis Erard Excellence Guilloché Main II also features blued steel hands, a polished 42mm steel case with a clear sapphire caseback and water resistance to fifty meters. Inside Louis Erard fits a Sellita SW261-1 automatic movement.
With its Excellence series and ongoing, highly successful partnerships with watchmakers (including Vianney Halter and Alain Silberstein) and designers, this small Le Noirmont watchmaker continues to raise its profile among collectors in search of relatively affordable watches with truly original, eye-catching designs.
Price: CHF 3,900, or approximately $4,200.
Specifications: Louis Erard Excellence Guilloché Main II
Movement: Automatic Sellita SW261-1 caliber, 28,800 VpH (4Hz), élaboré grade movement, meticulously decorated, special openworked oscillating weight with black lacquered Louis Erard symbol, approx. 38 hours of power reserve.
Case: 42mm x 12.25mm polished stainless steel, 3 pieces, domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment on both sides, movement visible through the transparent caseback, water resistant up to a pressure of 50 meters, signature fir tree crown, caseback engraved with “Limited Edition 1 of 99”.
Dial: Matte black varnish, open diamond made by hand guilloché in the traditional way by Fehr & Cie SA (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland), “Swiss Guilloché Main” transferred in powdered silver, signature fir tree hands in blued steel.
Strap: Black grained calf leather with tone-on-tone stitching, blue grained calf leather lining, polished stainless steel pin buckle, functional catch spring bars enabling the strap to be changed quickly.
Price: CHF 3,900, or approximately $4,200.
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