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The Watches

Jacob & Co. Spins a New Roulette Wheel

With a white ceramic ball bouncing around a miniature roulette wheel with thirty-seven pockets, the new Jacob & Co. Astronomia Casino is a watch lover’s best high-end bet. This playful addition to the ongoing Astronomia collection is a slimmer version of the 2019 edition and it places all bets on the dial while a flying tourbillon enlivens the back of the watch.

By removing the rotating orbs, flying tourbillon and skeletal dial (as seen on the earlier edition) from the top of the watch, Jacob & Co. has devised a more wrist-friendly Casino. Now 16mm thick (rather than the 24mm size of the earlier model), the watch’s 44-mm diameter rose gold case is crafted from polished rose gold and topped with a domed sapphire case.

When the user presses the pusher at the 8 o’clock position, the roulette wheel spins, almost friction-free. This causes the ceramic ball to bounce in a truly random manner between the crystal and the mirror-polished wheel-track flange. The ball will find its way to one of the thirty-seven pockets. Then, presumably, the winner collects.

Emulating a high-end betting house, Jacob & Co. has appointed the Astronomia Casino with appropriately luxurious fittings. The hours and minutes dial is made of a single slab of polished black onyx. Jacob & Co. has shaped dial’s applied 5N gold indices in a nod to the kite-cut sapphires it uses in several of its other watches.

As noted, Jacob & Co. places its flying tourbillon on the back of the watch, which is powered by the new caliber JCAM51 that boasts a comfortable seventy-two-hour power reserve. The arms on the flying tourbillon carriage are engraved and lacquered to match the roulette wheel on the opposite side. The same pattern is also seen on two plates on the caseback that act as winding and time-setting crowns.

Place your bets! Everyone’s a winner.

The ante for the Jacob & Co. Astronomia Casino is $280,000.

 

Specifications: Jacob & Co. Astronomia Casino

Movement: Manufacture Jacob & Co. manual winding JCAM51 with a power reserve of 72 hours.

Functions: Hours and minutes, flying tourbillon on caseback at 6 o’clock, 1 rotation/min., roulette animation on demand with Pusher at 8 o’clock, winding and time-setting on caseback.

Case: 44mm by 16.3mm rose gold with rose gold back with engravings and lacquered roulette pockets. Sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment, water resistance to 30 meters. 

Dial: Black Onyx with 5N gold kite-shaped indices.

Hands: Skeleton with 5N Gold, red tip and white SuperLuminova.

Roulette: Red, black and green lacquered pockets, ceramic ball.

Flange: Black PVD, 8 rhodium-plated diamond-shaped deflectors.

Bracelet: Black alligator strap with 18-karat rose gold deployant buckle. 

Price: $280,000 (limited edition of 101 pieces).

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The Watches

Maurice Lacroix Enhances Pontos Chronograph 

Maurice Lacroix tweaks its Pontos Chronograph 43mm with four new references that expand the collection’s high-value chronograph options with new sun-brushed black or gunmetal grey dial hues.

The latest Maurice Lacroix Pontos Chronograph 43mm offers a choice of black or gun metal dials.

These debuts echo the existing blue-dialed Pontos Chronograph with Arabic numerals and partially open-worked hands.

Look for additional SuperLuminova on the central chronograph hand as well, matching the enhanced luminescence of the hands. Maurice Lacroix has also added a color-coordinated date display disc to the 12-hour chronograph register at 6 o’clock.

Maurice Lacroix’s automatic ETA-based ML112 caliber, visible through the watch’s caseback, is finished with Côtes de Genève and circular graining, while the rotor is embellished with vertical Côtes de Genève and sun brushing.

The new models can be paired with a leather strap or a three-row steel bracelet. 

Finally, to echo its Aikon models, the new Pontos Chronograph 43mm now features the brand’s Easy Strap Exchange System, which allows a quick strap/bracelet swap if desired.

Maurice Lacroix now packages it all its watches with the same material it uses for its eco-friendly Aikon #tide collection. This means the new series is boxed with packaging made of recycled ocean-bound waste bottles. The watchmaker says it takes thirty-four bottles to make each watch box, which means thirty-four fewer bottles polluting the sea.

Prices:  $3,250 (steel bracelet) and $3,200 (leather strap).

 

Specifications: Maurice Lacroix Pontos Chronograph 43mm 

Case: 43mm by 15mm steel, 100 meters water resistant, clear sapphire back.

Movement: Automatic ETA 7750-based ML112 chronograph. 

Functions: Hours and minutes, small second at 9 o’clock, centered second chrono, 30 minutes chrono at 12 o’clock, hours chrono at 6 o’clock, date at 6 o’clock.

Dial: Black sunray; snailed and sandblasted counters and rhodium polished rings or gunmetal sunbrushed lacquered dial. Gold or rhodium-finished hands and markers. 

Bracelet: Three-row stainless steel, black leather strap alligator imitation with gold 4N M-logo. Both with Easy Change system. Butterfly buckle in stainless steel.

Prices:  $3,250 (steel bracelet) and $3,200 (leather strap).

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The Watches

Armin Strom Blues its Mirrored Force Resonance

A year after pioneering independent watchmaker Armin Strom launched a redesigned, sleeker Mirrored Force Resonance, the Swiss-based manufacture launches a new version, the Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Blue, sporting a specially textured blue dial and matching Alcantara strap.

The new Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Blue.

The newest iteration of the watch, first introduced by Armin Strom in 2016, is still one of the few serialized watch designs boasting a resonance-based regulating system. The newest series is a limited edition of fifty pieces with new blue accents that serve to highlight the dial’s three-dimensional display.

The newly dark blue off-center dial matches the twin resonance second counters, both of which are also finished in the same blue tone and painted with white numerals. The open-worked seconds dials (with their triple-arm hands) can be reset to zero by the pusher at 2 o’clock.

Up-close on the new blue ‘grenage’ finish.

These newly colorful elements, unusual enough on any dial,  share the space with another component not seen on any other resonance-based construction: a one-piece steel Resonance Clutch Spring.

Armon Strom’s signature creation essentially transfers energy between both hairsprings and quickly brings the balance wheels into resonance.

Caliber ARF21, showing bas-relief engraved text on back.

This new watch maintains the design’s 43mm by 11.55 steel case and raised sapphire crystal. On the back Armin Strom has engraved — in bas-relief — the mainplate with technical details and characteristics of the Mirrored Force Resonance mechanism.

To completing the blue theme, Armin Strom delivers the Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Blue on a matching dark blue Alcantara strap. 

Price: $63,000

Specifications: Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Blue 

(Reference no. ST22-RF.05, limited to 50 pieces)

Movement: Armin Strom manufacture Caliber ARF21, manual winding with two independent regulating systems connected by a resonance clutch spring. Power reserve: 48 hours. 

Case: 43mm by 11.55m stainless steel, raised sapphire crystal and caseback with anti-reflective treatment. Water resistance to 30 meters.

Dial: Dark blue with grenage center and a circular satin-brushed chapter ring and applied polished baton indices. Hands: Steel, manufactured by Armin Strom, decorated by hand. 

Strap: Dark blue Alcantara with white stitching and double folding clasp in stainless steel.

Price: $63,000. 

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The Watches

Richard Mille Launches its First Sports Watch for Women

Richard Mille debuts its first women’s sports watch with the new RM 07-04 Automatic Sport,  a collection of six colorful models with a new automatic skeletonized movement and a highly shock-resistant, 30.5mm-by-45mm lightweight quartz or carbon case.

The new Richard Mille RM 07-04 Automatic Sport comes in six color options with either a colorful quartz case or a black carbon case.

Richard Mille says it took three years to develop the new series. Many of its technical features were devised after consulting with six female athletes who described the comfort, features and aesthetics of their ideal watch for wear during and after their sporting activities.

The collection’s CRMA8 caliber, the most compact movement developed by Richard Mille, features the brand’s emblematic function selector.

Eliminating all pressure on the winding stem, the selector is linked to a push-piece at 4 o’clock and allows the wearer to easily choose from among the neutral (N), winding (W) or time setting (H) positions. A hand at 5 o’clock displays the active function.

The RM 07-04 Automatic Sport is shock resistant with a highly tested and demonstrated ability to withstand accelerations of over 5,000 g’s. Richard Mille ensures this rigidity by constructing the baseplate and bridges from titanium with black PVD and electro-plasma treatments. Richard Mille then satin-finishes, micro-blasts and bevels these components by hand.

The complete case construction of the series is water-resistant to fifty meters thanks to two Nitrile O-rings, twenty titanium spline screws and 316L stainless steel washers. Each watch is also lightweight at 36 grams, strap included.

Five of the new watches (creamy white, mauve, salmon, green and dark blue) are cased in Quartz TPT while one (black case, below) is made from Carbon TPT.

As each is made with multiple layers of parallel carbon fiber or silica filaments, each looks just a bit different from the others, even when finished with the same color. Richard Mille finishes each watch’s titanium crown with a satin-finishing that is then micro-blasted and polished.

In an unusual touch, Richard Mille says it created the specific colors of each RM 07-04 Automatic Sport case to “interact perfectly with those of the bracelets, the tips of the hands, or the flange, according to a palette of shades to which Richard Mille alone knows the secret.”

Price: $185,000.

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The Watches

Louis Vuitton Builds an Astral Automaton

La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton earlier this year unveiled the impressive Louis Vuitton Tambour Jacquemart Minute Repeater 200th Anniversary, a white gold and titanium-cased minute repeater with an astral-themed dial Louis Vuitton says is meant to mimic “a porthole opening onto an endless galaxy.”

The impressive Louis Vuitton Tambour Jacquemart Minute Repeater 200th Anniversary.

In that dial-borne galaxy you’ll find an unusual space capsule automaton mechanism endowed with a cathedral gong minute repeater.

Within the watch’s 46.8 mm by 15.2mm titanium case (with white gold lugs and bezel) Louis Vuitton places nine gold automatons (known historically as jacquemarts, characters devised to strike gongs on church bells).

When the wearer presses the slide, the rocket takes off to expose diamond ‘passengers’ in its cockpit. At the same time, the planets on the dial spin while the Louis Vuitton Monogram flower rotates and two stars shoot across the blue void. Even the case itself is finished with the celestial theme as its design is meant to echo the shape of an astronaut’s helmet. 

As this astral show unfolds, a cathedral gong minute repeater chimes the hours, quarter hours and minutes.

La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton spent two years developing this unique piece as a tribute to the 200th birthday of Louis Vuitton. The watchmaker enlisted the creativity of engraver Dick Steenman and enameler Anita Porchet to decorate the the case and to craft the dial elements.

You might recall that Steenman and Porchet also collaborated on the Louis Vuitton Tambour Carpe Diem,  an earlier automaton unique piece, which won the Audacity prize at the 2021 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG).

Look closely at the dial at 7 o’clock on this new watch and you’ll see Ms. Porchet’s signature. 

On the bezel, the Louis Vuitton signature is encrusted in blue rubber letters. The pusher, crown and the LV initials are set with a gradation of tourmalines and sapphires to match the deep blue dial.

From the back of the case, a sapphire crystal allows a peek at the LV200 caliber, a hand-wound movement with 480 components, several of which have been finished in a celestial blue hue.

The watch nicely blends traditional high-end watchmaking and gem-setting techniques with a contemporary, space-themed design. Its unique character again demonstrates how La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton has successfully marked its own path among its peers within traditional high-end Swiss watchmaking. 

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