Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor with Salmon Dial Reviewed by Tim Mosso
by Tim Mosso
The watch world is rife with mysteries. “Mystery” dials had their heyday in the mid-20th century; IWC has a “Mystère” flying tourbillon; 60 percent “Swiss Made” watches leave the remaining 40 percent mysterious. Amid all this cloak-and-dagger intrigue, there’s the mystery of Laurent Ferrier and its non-existent waiting list.
Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Watches like this Classic Micro-Rotor leave me wondering why Laurent Ferrier doesn’t have a queue two years long awaiting delivery of its products. On substance, this LF offers world-beating quality.
Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
The broad contours of the Laurent Ferrier brand are easy to explain. After achieving mastery as a restorer, complication specialist, and big-brand constructor in the final third of the last century, watchmaker Laurent Ferrier joined his son Christian and a consortium of investors to launch the eponymous Geneva-based independent.
A business entity was created in the late 2000s, and the first product – an elegant caseback tourbillon dress watch – launched in 2010 as the Classic Tourbillon Double Hairspring. Two years later, the Galet Micro-Rotor launched as the brand’s more attainable staple product.
Aside from the addition of a square case option and dial color variations, the core automatic watch, now dubbed “Classic Micro-Rotor,” remains available as of 2024. Today’s subject is a fine specimen of the breed with a purist’s choice of “autumn” salmon dial and stainless-steel case.
Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor Autumn with salmon dial
This Galet, or “pebble,” shape is designed to evoke a small stone weathered for eons in a babbling brook. The result is a beauty balanced halfway between nature and technology. If underrated American architect Bruce Goff had been a watch designer, he would have drawn something like the Micro-Rotor.
Soft creases add a necessary baseline of definition to ward off any impression of bloat or indistinct volume. Rolled lug tips terminate each of the four appendages with a teardrop flourish.
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Dial side, the featured Classic embodies one of many possible design directions. Laurent Ferrier has offered its watches with a bewildering range of dial colors, materials, and patterns. Almost anything imagined has been realized at least once in the twelve years since this model launched so a diligent search can yield fulfillment of almost any desire.
If that fails, Ferrier appears more amenable to special requests and low-volume micro editions than many of its rivals in this space. I’ve seen grand feu enamel and onyx among other standout dials; through the “Boreal” series, even lume has been applied to this dress watch line.
Brushed dial of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Most versions of the Galet and Classic Micro-Rotor series employ a set of white gold dart-style indices and “assegai,” or spear-shaped hands. Examples with metal dials generally employ the vertical “curtain” style satin brushing, and this autumnal face embodies a pleasing tone on the ever-popular salmon spectrum.
A glaze of 5N rose gold is applied to impart warmth. The small seconds display is sunken and concentric patterned, but enjoyment of this detail is spoiled somewhat by the watch’s lack of hacking seconds and the precise setting that would have enabled.
Caliber FBN 229.01 visible through the display back of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Stop seconds aside, the caliber FBN 229.01 leaves little to be desired. The most intriguing technical highlight is a double direct-impulse escapement modeled after Breguet’s 1802 “natural” escapement concept. No lever is installed: this system allows the twin nickel-phosphorous escape wheels to impulse the balance directly.
Natural escapement regulator of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Since the balance oscillates in two directions, each wheel impulses the balance only in its current direction of travel. The result is a system that wastes no energy trying to reverse the momentum of the balance wheel; the hairspring does that heavy lifting.
Three positive consequences result from this system. First, there’s less total friction. This improves chronometry. Second, it operates without lubricant. This reduces maintenance requirements and improves performance during the gaps between overhauls.
Finally, it reduces the oscillating mass. Combined with less friction, lower mass enables a single modestly sized barrel to provide 72 hours of autonomy when fully wound.
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To provide a measure of shock resistance and ensure the non-impulsing wheel is held fast, a silicon blocker locks the inactive rotor. This blocker is visible in some of the accompanying photos, and it could be mistaken for the silicon impulse lever often seen on modern watch movements: not the case. Remember; there is no lever – Swiss or otherwise – in this escapement.
Natural escapement regulator of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
While the aesthetic of the 229.01 is classical, the construction takes advantage of modern technology and fabrication techniques. La Fabrique du Temps, the haute horlogerie arm of Louis Vuitton watchmaking, provided much of the mental muscle to bring this engine to market.
Christian Ferrier once explained to me that he trusted LFT founders Enrico Barbasini and Michel Navas from prior experience. Their last names are “B” and “N,” respectively, in “FBN 229.01.” Moreover, the LV factory’s facility with computer assisted design and prototyping was responsible for the quick gestation and reasonable pricing of the Micro-Rotor series.
Movement of the Natural escapement regulator of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Additional technical highlights start with the balance assembly. Its free-sprung architecture is more shock resistant than a mobile index, and precise tuning is possible with adjustment masses on the rim of the balance wheel. While a chronometer only requires adjustment and testing in five positions, Ferrier tests in six; the untested sixth position, often described as something of a watchmaker’s garbage dump, finds no refuge here.
Overcoil hairspring of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Finally, an overcoil hairspring gives Laurent Ferrier’s watchmakers less trouble finding a low timing delta across its six-position timing adjustments.
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In my experience – over 10,000 watches – the Micro-Rotor has the quietest winding system on the market past or present. Traditional jeweled staff rotors are uncommon in our modern landscape dominated by ball bearings, but this one uses massive pivots and huge jewels to diminish this design’s traditional fragility.
Micro-rotor of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
When combined with an ultra-fine ratchet wheel and pawl lever, the jeweled staff and 22-karat gold mass produce efficient winding that’s utterly imperceptible to the wrist or ear of its owner…
…and the engine-turned gold rotor is only the start of the feast of finish rendered by Ferrier. The rotor bridge is both black polished across its top and beveled across each flank. There’s a set of Geneva waves on the bridges so vivid that they create an unceasing illusion of motion. Beveling is broad, rounded, and mirrored with four to eight sharp interior creases depending on how one counts these flourishes.
Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Unarguably, the skeletonized, “black” polished, and interior beveled balance bridge is the decorative chef d’oeuvre of a movement that scores style points like an in-his-prime Kobe Bryant sank shots. Finish is on par with rivals such as De Bethune and Moritz Grossmann while falling just short of the exalted heights of Romain Gauthier and Greubel Forsey’s top-shelf models; Audemars Piguet, F.P. Journe, and even A. Lange & Söhne don’t execute their mainstream models to this standard.
Impeccible Geneva waves and polished hand anglage of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
While an établisseur, not a manufacture, Laurent Ferrier is responsible for finishing these movement components in-house, and the artisan’s touch is a core component of this watch’s soul.
It’s not clear how Laurent Ferrier fell from its mid-2010s grace. That was the period when collectors seemed to wax rapturous about every new launch from the brand. Forums, social media, and word-of-mouth were uniformly gushing until around 2017 or 2018. The party ended around 2017 or 2018 for reasons I can only speculate, but the past is less compelling than the present.
Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
With quality at a level matched by few and exceeded by even fewer, Laurent Ferrier dress watches also exhibit attractive preowned pricing, reasonable OEM availability, and compelling design.
Movement of the Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
How good are these watches? Let’s put it this way; the salesman in me would love to steer you towards something half as special and twice as costly, but the watch enthusiast in me would cease to be on speaking terms with that salesman.
For more information, please visit https://laurentferrier.ch/collections/classic/micro-rotor
Quick Facts: Laurent Ferrier Classic Micro-Rotor
Edition: Regular production
Reference Code: LCF004.AC.RG1.2
Case: stainless steel, 40mm, 11.3mm thick, 47.1mm lug-to-lug; 20mm lug spacing; 30-meters WR, push down crown
Clasp: Steel folding clasp
Dial: Autumn 5N rose gold treated; white gold hands and hour indices
Movement: Caliber FBN 229.01, automatic with 72-hour power reserve, single barrels, 3Hz double direct impulse escapement, free sprung balance, overcoil hairspring, six-position adjustment, 35 jewels
Functions: hours, minutes, seconds
2024 Retail Price: $59,000
2024 Preowned Price: $37,950
* Tim Mosso is the media director and watch specialist at Watchbox. You can check out his very comprehensive YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@WatchBoxStudios/videos.
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Imho, the handfinishing on Ferrier’s movements is simply the best — even compared to giants such as Greubel Forsey, Chronomètre Ferdinad Berthoud & Lang & Heyne … 👌
While I concur about the engineering and finishing, it’s no wonder to me what these haven’t taken off. Simply stated, they are too expensive as time-only watches compared to competitors. We sometimes look at watches as works of art, but in fact they are commercial objects in an economic marketplace.
The reason the used prices look attractive is only as a percentage of list. The market has partially corrected the too-high list on the secondary market but even then there some are time-only competitors arguably for less.
You make an extremely compelling & persuasive argument, Michael. But while a 3-hander with an msrp of $59k might be coronary-inducing for many, I’d argue that picking up a pre-owned example of genuine, bona-fide worldclass watchmaking for about the same retail of a current, precious metal Daytona is not only attractive — but an amazing bang-4-buck proposition. Bells, whistles & fog horns should be sounding … exploding skyrockets announcing a fire sale over the skies of Bala Cynwyd! Seriously. Makes me wish I’d been born rich instead of handsome.
I’m affraid I’m going to have to break with you completely regarding the comment about watches as mere commercial objects, however: At this level of watchmaking, they are indeed, works of art. 🎨
I’m of a similar mind (and wit / handsomeness/ poverty) as Quentin but I also want a future for LR which means sales. For the retail price would I be expecting white gold not steel? Probably. But let’s move to the aesthetic. Yes it’s beautiful, refined and elegant, while still being modern. In doing so is almost too good looking as it lacks something distinctive. I forget who coined the phrase but it’s better to create a design people either love or hate. Here we have a design nobody could hate. Herein lies the answer to Tim’s mystery, does that mean fewer people will love it?
In white gold at £30k preowned I’d be forgetting I have children to feed and a mortgage to pay!
You raise a couple of very valid points, Ed. While precious metal would undoubtedly add value and potentionally attract a whole ‘nother class of watch enthusiast, one look at that movement and Ferrier’s mile-wide anglage (as Tim is fond of saying) and meticulous finishing renders the whole point moot — at least for this watch nerd.
As for your 2nd and more salient point — much like the subject of this article, I believe you & I also suffer from the burden of being cursed with classical good looks.
As I glance at the Roger Dubuis on my wrist — the words “JUST FOR FRIENDS” boldly gracing the caseback — the wisdom of your quote isn’t lost on me.
Carlos Dias, Mr. Dubuis’ intrepid partner, subscribed wholeheartedly to the “Why be everyone’s cup of tea, if you can be someone’s shot of tequila” school of design.” It’s that willingness to alienate many in order to truly win the hearts of a precious few that’s made me such a die-hard devotee of the Dubuis brand …
Wearing a Roger Dubuis is a clear signal to fellow enthusiasts that you have both knowledge and class. Chapeau, Quentin.
I agree that precious metal isn’t required, though sadly I do suspect those without your knowledge and class could well overlook this gem as they fumble the words ‘hype watch’ into Google or set their filter’s to gold/platinum only.
We must remember we were all children once and the only true crime is rejecting education, as we all have something still to learn.
All the best, Ed
Indeed. Watch collecting is a never-ending journey of discovery. To quote Ernest Hemingway on writing: “We are all novices in a discipline where no one ever becomes a master.” Likewise, as watch collectors, we’re all merely students at various points in our journey. And precious metal certainly has its place. I could most definitely make room in my collection for a Rolex King Midas or a vintage gold Cartier …