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Heartbeat: Unique Piece Platinum Parallax Tourbillon by Grönefeld

by Ian Skellern

I’m just back (and still recovering) from an excellent SalonQP 2015, which looked better than ever to me.

Grönefeld unique piece Parallax Tourbillon in platinum with blackened silver dial and striking red accents

The exhibition was awash with fantastic timepieces and we will look at more over the coming weeks and months, but here’s one that caught my eye: a unique piece Parallax Tourbillon in platinum with black dial and bright red highlights by Bart and Tim Grönefeld, two excellent watchmakers from the Netherlands who also happen to be brothers.

The bright red stitching against the black leather of the strap makes for a stunning backdrop to the brightly polished platinum buckle

While Grönefeld is a relatively young brand launched only in 2008, the brothers’ family watchmaking heritage goes back a full 100 years.

The Parallax Tourbillon itself has a fairly enviable pedigree, having been awarded the prize for Best Tourbillon at the 2014 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.

Grönefeld unique piece Parallax Tourbillon in platinum with blackened silver dial and striking red accents

Bart and Tim put a lot of attention and effort into precision, so the Parallax Tourbillon has a large central second hand allowing the wearer to fully utilize its superlative chronometric performance.

As well as the dark dial and eye-catching red highlights, there are a couple of other interesting modifications to the movement in this unique piece that differentiate it from the core collection.

Movement side of the Grönefeld Parallax Tourbillon unique piece, which displays what is quite possibly the world’s only partially ruthenium-coated stainless steel bridges

Usually (for Grönefeld at any rate; extremely rare for everyone else) the bridges of the Parallax Tourbillon are 100 percent unadulterated stainless steel with the varying types of fine finishing providing all of the contrast. However, for this unique piece parts of the stainless steel bridges have been treated with black ruthenium for even higher contrast.

Plus, instead of the usual circular graining on the tops of the bridges, this unique piece features straight graining.

Up close and personal with the flying tourbillon of the Grönefeld unique piece Parallax Tourbillon, with the parallax visible between the highly polished stainless steel balance cock above the tourbillon and the dark second hand passing through the “W” at the bottom right

And did I say that it’s a flying tourbillon?

And that the second hand always runs parallel to the balance cock?

And that you don’t pull out the crown to set the time but push it to select the function: time-setting or winding?

The richly layered red-on-black dial of the Grönefeld unique piece Parallax Tourbillon in platinum, with the balance cock and large central second hand in parallel

But that’s all bye-the-bye because the main reason I’m featuring this unique piece Parallax Tourbillon here is that it looks so bloody cool!

Grönefeld unique piece Parallax Tourbillon in platinum with blackened silver dial and striking red accents

You may also enjoy Copernicus, Alignment Shift, And The Grönefeld Parallax Tourbillon: A Nerd Story and Grönefeld One Hertz – A Collector’s Journey.

For more information, please visit www.gronefeld.com/en/collection-parallax.

Quick Facts
Case: 43 x 12.5 mm, 950 platinum
Dial: Stirling silver
Movement: manually wound Caliber G-03 with flying tourbillon
Functions: hours and minutes on subdial, central second hand runs parallel to balance cock; power reserve indication, crown function indicator (winding or setting)
Limitation: one unique piece in platinum
Price: €160,000 (excluding shipping and taxes)

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