To celebrate the tenth anniversary of its line of Golden Bridge automatic watches, Corum launches the Corum 10th Anniversary Golden Bridge Automatic Collection. And with the new collection, Corum treats the wearer to a more expansive view of the watch’s unusual baguette-shaped in-line movement.

Developed as a manual-wind movement in the 1970s by Vincent Calabrese, who patented the design in 1977, Corum debuted the minimalist caliber within its collection in 1980 as the Golden Bridge, with movement parts made of gold.

The watch was a hit, and Corum created an impressive range of Golden Bridge iterations in the years after 1980. Then, in 2011 and after four years of research, Corum developed an automatic version, wisely showcasing the watch’s floating linear movement by creating an oscillating weight on rails to power the new automatic Golden Bridge.

New tonneau cases

Now, ten years after that debut, Corum celebrates with four new tonneau-shaped Golden Bridge models that frame the movement, which again features main plates and bridges made from 18-karat gold.

This precious-metal caliber is now both protected by and clearly visible through a large panoramic sapphire crystal and caseback.  Corum cut the new crystal from a single piece of sapphire, extending it from the top crystal to the sides of the watch to allow for a 360-degree view of the movement.

Corum sets the sapphire in either a titanium or gold case measuring 37.2mm by 51.8mm, larger than we’ve seen for previous Golden Bridge automatic models. The new case size effectively creates a larger stage for the star of the watch, the movement, which is set vertically from the 12 o’clock position to the 6 o’clock position, where you’ll find the crown.

For the dial, Corum created another unusual visual treat: a ‘floating harness’ system to display its hand-applied indexes. Corum notes that “because there is no dial to affix the indexes to, the harness system links to the movement base so that the markers seem to be floating in space.”

Smoked crystal

For yet another unusual view, turn the watch over. From the back Corum shows off its Caliber C0313 through a smoke-hued sapphire crystal.  The movement boasts forty hours of power reserve, a variable inertia balance wheel, a miniaturized barrel and main plate and even more precious metal: the linear oscillating weight is made from platinum.

Corum is making its 10th Anniversary Golden Bridge Automatic Collection with four distinct editions: a blackened titanium and 18-karat gold model in a limited edition of 150 pieces, and a full blackened titanium version in an edition of fifty pieces. Two more models echo these cases, but are set with diamonds and are offered in more limited numbers. Corum will make 100 pieces of the diamond-set titanium-and-gold version and only twenty-five of the diamond-set titanium watch.

Prices start at $29,000 and rise to $41,900 for the rose gold model with diamonds.