Tag Archive for: Tourbillon

Urban Jürgensen Tourbillon Minute Repeater

Simply Divine: The Urban Jürgensen Unique Piece Tourbillon Minute Repeater Regulator

Around 1995, the founder of the modern Urban Jürgensen & Sønner brand, Peter Baumberger (1940-2010), went into partnership with the then-independent movement manufacture Lémania to develop a minute repeater tourbillon movement. This project was finished in 2000; however, very few of these movements were ever made by Lémania, but Baumberger received three, each with different indications and finishes. One was a regulator.

Jean Daniel Nicolas Two-Minute Tourbillon by Mr. Daniel Roth in pink gold (photo courtesy Guy Lucas de Peslouan)

The Watch That Changed My Life: The Jean Daniel Nicolas Two-Minute Tourbillon By Daniel Roth

Many watches hold a special significance for their owners. The watch I am chronicling here didn’t just change someone’s life, it changed MY life: the Jean Daniel Nicolas Two-Minute Tourbillon by Daniel Roth.

Intricately skeletonized and engraved dial of the Grieb & Benzinger Blue Merit

The Blue Merit: Grieb & Benzinger Makes An Ultra-Rare A. Lange & Söhne Tourbillon Pour Le Mérite Rarer Still

Quill & Pad has the extreme honor to introduce you to the Grieb & Benzinger Blue Merit, a unique collector’s item created from one of the rarest serial movements in watch history: A. Lange & Söhne’s Tourbillon Pour le Mérite.

Close up of the dial of the Ulysse Nardin Freak Blue Cruiser

Give Me Five! Tourbillons From Baselworld 2014 Part 2

Continuing our series on tourbillons from Baselworld 2014, here are a few from Breguet, Chopard, Ulysse Nardin, Grönefeld and Kari Voutilainen.

Louis Moinet Dragon Tourbillon

Give Me Five! Tourbillons From Baselworld 2014 Part 1

While Baselworld 2014 was not a particularly big year for tourbillons, they were still an important element in the collections of most brands and a few of them were truly exceptional. Here are just a few of the tourbillons that passed in front of my lens at Baselworld 2014.

Entrance to the Breguet manufacture

How It’s Made: Inside The Breguet Castle Of Complications

Not everyone gets to check out Breguet’s factory from the inside, and those who do generally don’t get to take photographs of what they see. This modernized factory in the heart of the remote Vallée de Joux with its many annexed hallways, secretive doors and interesting manufacturing capabilities has long been a jealously guarded secret.

Jaeger LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonner

When Art Ticks: Why Jaeger-LeCoultre Is A Master Of Art And Mechanics

This year’s Hybris Artistica collection features a set of 12 unique masterpieces created to draw attention to this quasi-lost art. These 12 timepieces combine a high complication that is already unique to Jaeger-LeCoultre with an extreme artistic element . . .

Cartier_Astrocalendaire

Rotonde De Cartier Astrocalendaire Perpetual Calendar: A Greek In French Couture?

Greece. It’s the birthplace of western civilization, democracy, and science. This country lays claim to some of the most brilliant minds in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and politics that the world has ever seen. All of these wonderful thinkers developed the most advanced ideas of their day, some of which are as true today as they were 2,600 years ago when they first began pondering the big questions.

The Greeks are even credited with inventing the first analog computer in the first century B.C., which they used for predicting astronomical positions and eclipses. Fast forward through 2,000 years and a descendent has been born, one with Greek heritage of astronomical proportions. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

So I would like to continue by nominating the Rotonde de Cartier Astrocalendaire Perpetual Calendar as the Greekiest thing to ever be built by a quintessential French house such as Cartier. Some of you might already be agreeing, but for the more stubborn of you I would like to elucidate my thinking and hopefully by the end you will be saying, “opa!”

A Greubel Forsey Double Tourbillon Technique is the most accurate independently certified wristwatch

The Greubel Forsey Double Tourbillon 30° Technique: What’s Friction Got To Do, Got To Do With It!?

BOOM!!

Hopefully that loud bang didn’t startle you too much! If it did, take a moment to go watch a video of a cute kitten and come back when you have calmed down a bit. Better? Ok! Here at the beginning of the new year, I am reminded there is a lot of advice out there saying you should always start with a bang.