At Grieb & Benzinger, blue is something of a corporate color when it comes to decorating the unique and exceedingly rare watches that the boutique brand based in a historic castle near Stuttgart produces.

The blue color found on the movements fine-tuned by Hermann Grieb and decorated by Jochen Benzinger is a lot more than just “color,” though. Grieb once told me how he and Benzinger came upon the idea for it.

“The idea for this color came to us after an exhausting day of work in a local vineyard while enjoying a cool drink,” Grieb explained in his mischievous deadpan heavily inflected with local dialect. “The setting sun and the colors it created in the northern Black Forest sky simply inspired us.”

Grieb & Benzinger Blue Polaris Midnight Imperial

According to the experienced master watchmaker, who is quite possibly the foremost expert in vintage watchmaking in Germany, the unique blue tone characteristic of Grieb & Benzinger’s highly decorated movements symbolizes the time period of time beginning at dusk until the point where night begins.

“This period of time, lasting for about twenty minutes, is when the sky is colored in the most beautiful dark blue and red tones thanks to the sunlight reflecting in the atmosphere and the filter effect of the ozone layer,” Grieb continued. “This interplay of colors reproduced on our movements comes from a special, galvanic treatment using rhodium and platinum.”

Hermann Grieb, Georg Bartkowiak, and Jochen Benzinger at Schloss Dätzingen, where the boutique brand is at home

Blue Chips

This hue is also prevalent in the latest set of unique piece timepieces produced by the German team, which Georg Bartkowiak – the third partner guiding the fastidious boutique brand – has bundled under the clever name Blue Chips in order to reflect the reliability of the movements used and the prevalent magnetic blue color characterizing the timepieces.

Grieb & Benzinger Blue Polaris in pink gold

The exciting use of the azure hue really comes to the forefront when sun hits the guilloche plates, dials, and various other components, making for a veritable sea of gleaming blue.

Components appear to float within the luxurious, spacious cases; time becomes almost secondary against the art that is Benzinger’s handiwork. Benzinger loves to work with Unitas movements, thanks in great part to their expansive bridges offering him plenty of creative opportunity. And their reliability is, of course, legendary.

The full Grieb & Benzinger Blue Chips collection

The portfolio of Blue Chips includes three versions of the existing Polaris model and two of the Tulip. The Polaris features a larger subdial for hours and minutes concentrically intertwined with the subsidiary seconds. The large sunray guilloche surrounding the two dials is left space to be shown to advantage, while the skeletonized section inside the subdials shows off the fact that every single visible component within the movement has been painstakingly decorated by hand.

Grieb & Benzinger Blue Tulip in pink gold

Floral extreme

The Tulip models take the concept to a more floral extreme: here, Benzinger’s workshop has skeletonized the base plate to its bare minimum before delicately engraving a floral pattern into the plates and bridges – which are now hardly recognizable as such.

Then the plate is galvanized with the blue platinum coating unique to Grieb & Benzinger. Some of the other components are galvanized to match the case (either pink or white gold). The complex, airy effect is no less breathtaking than that of the sheer guilloche of the Polaris models. To choose between them would be extremely difficult!

Grieb & Benzinger Blue Tulip Diamond

The Blue Tulip Diamond Model is additionally set with 77 brilliant-cut diamonds (2.55 ct) around the bezel, adding a bit of scintillating sparkle.

Grieb & Benzinger Blue Polaris Midnight Imperial

The Blue Polaris Midnight Imperial timepiece, on the other hand, boasts 66 invisibly-set black Princess-cut diamonds to match the midnight tones of the subdials. The effect is at once masculine and formal – stealth luxury at its best.

It goes without saying that these are all rare and customizable timepieces.

For more information, please visit www.grieb-benzinger.com.

Quick Facts Blue Polaris
Case: 43 mm, pink gold or platinum; 66 invisibly-set black Princess-cut diamonds available for bezel of platinum model (Blue Polaris Midnight Imperial)
Movement: highly modified manually wound Unitas 6498 with countless hours’ worth of hand decoration
Dial: two-part hand-guilloche partially skeletonized base dial; platinum version’s upper dial is decorated with Breguet frosted finish
Functions: hours, minutes
Pricing: €43,500 (rose gold), €65,000 (platinum), €85,000 (Blue Polaris Midnight Imperial in white gold)

Quick Facts Blue Tulip
Case: 43 mm, pink gold or white gold; 77 brilliant-cut diamonds (2.55 ct) available for bezel of white gold model (Blue Tulip Diamond)
Movement: highly modified manually wound Unitas 6498 with countless hours’ worth of hand decoration
Dial: hand-skeletonized and -engraved dial with platinum blue coating
Functions: hours, minutes
Pricing: €40,500 (rose gold), €52,500 (Blue Tulip Diamond in white gold)