Fired by Fantasy: The Enamel Artistry of Haute Horology

Enamelling is a tedious process, to put it mildly. The raw material must first be ground into a fine powder, and then mixed with a suitable medium (oils or water are both used) to form a paint-like emulsion. This liquid is then applied like paint, before being fired in a kiln to vitrify it – the medium evaporates, while the powder melts and fuses into glass. There are variations to these steps, of course. Some manufactures, for example, choose to sieve the power directly onto a base of either brass or gold, and fire this “layer” of powder directly. Whatever the process, every step is fraught with danger. The product may crack during the firing process. Unseen impurities may surface as imperfections. Colours may react in unexpected ways. There are numerous risks to endure. Why, then, does this technique continue to be used?

Despite all its drawbacks, enamel still has a depth and nuance that cannot be replicated anywhere else. It is also permanent – vitrified enamel is essentially inert and, like noble metals, will remain unchanged a century from now. The different techniques used in enamelling are capable of creating a wide spectrum of products as well, from a single large surface free of blemishes, to microscopic levels of detail in an enamel painting. Perhaps the romantic aspect of this metiers d’art accounts for part of its appeal too; the time and touch of the enamellist is the perfect counterpoint to the watchmaker, with art on one side and science on the other.

Variations on Theme

Enamels are fired at various temperatures – or not at all – depending on their types. Grand feu (literally “great fire”) enamel is fired at around 820 degrees Celsius, although intermediate firings to “set” it may be at around 100 degrees Celsius, to boil the solvent off without fusing the powder. Enamels in general, including those used in miniature painting, may also be fired at around 100 degrees Celsius instead. Finally, there is cold enamel, an epoxy resin that cures and hardens at room temperature.

What difference does it make? For a start, higher temperatures are definitely more difficult to work with, since the enamel may crack during firing, or the subsequent cooling down process. The spectrum of colours used in grand feu enamelling is also more limited, as there are less compounds that can withstand the temperature. The choice of technique boils down to the desired product – for all its drawbacks, grand feu enamel has an inimitable look. A great monochromatic example is the Breguet reference 5177. Enamels, porcelains, and lacquers all share common properties of hardness, durability, and the ability to take on both matte and polished finishes. The three aren’t interchangeable though. Lacquer is an organic finish that is applied in layers, with each successive coat curing at room temperature before the next is added. Porcelain is a ceramic that is produced by firing materials in a kiln to vitrify them. Although enamel is also fired, it only contains glass and colouring compounds, and lacks porcelain’s clay content.

Raised Feilds

In champlevé enamelling, a thick dial base is engraved to create hollow cells, before these cavities are filled with enamel and fired. Because the engraving step produces rough surfaces at the bottom of each cell, the champlevé technique typically uses only opaque enamels. The method allows areas on the dial to be selectively excavated, and for enamels to be mixed freely within each dial. This is done to great effect in the Van Cleef & Arpel Brise d'Été (above and opposite), which demonstrates the brand's decorative chops with not only champlevé enamelling but also valloné and plique-à-jour (discussed later); valloné is a type of champlevé, with more depth and nuance thanks to hill-like reliefs.

Champlevé enamelling’s use isn’t limited to creating decorative art. In Parmigiani Fleurier’s Tecnica Ombre Blanche, for instance, it was simply the most appropriate technique. Although the timepiece has a simple white enamel dial, its surface is interrupted by three sub-dials and an aperture for the tourbillon. This watch was new in 2016 and not only has Parmigiani Fleurier not revisited it, what with the brand's renaissance, but no other brand has explored it either. As noted in our earlier story, the alternative here
would be to make a complete enamel dial, before cutting out the appropriate sections in the middle. One can, however, imagine the risks of doing that.

Is there a limit to the level of details that can be achieved with champlevé enamel? Patek Philippe may have the answer with the Ref. 6002 Sun Moon Tourbillon (right). Apart from the centre portion, which is produced using the cloisonné technique (discussed later), the timepiece’s dial is a work of champlevé enamel – even the railway track chapter ring was milled out in relief, before the recesses are filled with enamel and fired.

Engraving isn’t necessarily the only way to produce the cells used in champlevé enamel though. Hublot put a modern twist on things with the Classic Fusion Enamel Britto, by stamping the white gold dial base to create the raised borders between the cells. This not only reduces the time needed for each dial but also ensures uniformity between them. Subsequent steps, however, remain unchanged: the cells were sequentially filled with different colours of enamel and fired multiple times before the entire dial surface was polished to form a uniformly smooth surface.

Wire Work

Cloisonné enamelling is almost like the opposite of the champlevé technique – instead of removing material from a dial blank, things are added on it instead. The cloisons (literally “partitions”) here refer to the wires, each no thicker than a human hair, that the enamellist bends into shape and attaches onto a base to create enclosed cells. These cells are then filled with enamel of different colours, before the dial is fired to fuse the powder. The wires remain visible in the final product, and look like outlines of a drawing, with a metallic sheen that contrasts with the glassy surfaces of the infilled enamel.

Plique-à-jour (“letting in daylight) enamel can be considered a variation of cloisonné enamel, but the technique is a lot rarer owing to its complexity and fragility. Like its cloisonné sibling, plique-à-jour enamelling involves creating enclosed cells using wires, before filling them with enamel. In this case, however, there is no base. The lack of a backing can be achieved in various ways, but usually involves working on a base layer a la cloisonné enamelling, before filing it away to leave just the wires holding onto vitrified enamel. Since there is no base, plique-à-jour enamelling almost always involves transparent or translucent enamel that allows light through, which essentially creates tiny stained glass windows.

Van Cleef & Arpels has used the above technique to great effect. In the Lady Arpels Nuit Enchantee watch (seen here across both pages), a grisaille enamelled lower section supplies nightime context to an upper section with elements executed in plique-à-jour (the fairy's wings) and façonné enamel (to cradle the yellow sapphires) forms the foreground. Even the surfeit of sapphires, diamonds and rock crystal cannot overwhelm the artistry here.

Hybrid Theory

There are several “hybrid” techniques that combine enamelling with other decorative arts, and flinqué enamelling is arguably the best known given its long history of use. The technique combines guillochage with enamelling – a brass or gold dial is first decorated with guilloché, before layers of enamel are successively applied and fired. When this enamel coating is sufficiently thick, it is polished to create a smooth surface; the final result is a translucent lens through which the guilloché is admired. Depending on the desired effect, the enamel used may be colourless to impart a subtle sheen, or coloured for more visual oomph, like the trio of limited edition Rotonde de Cartier high complications unveiled at Watches & Wonders 2015. Vacheron Constantin has even adapted the technique by using guilloché patterns to mimic woven fabrics in the Métiers d’Art Elégance Sartoriale.

Developed by the husband-and-wife team of Olivier and Dominique Vaucher, shaded enamel (email ombrant) also involves the application of translucent enamel over an engraved dial. Instead of a regular pattern a la guilloché, however, shaded enamel entails the creation of an image in relief. This technique was last used in the Hermès Arceau Tigre, but the watchmaker does utilise other hybrid techniques, seen prominently on the unique Arceau pocket cheval punk.

The final technique here is Cartier’s enamel granulation, which combines enamelling with Etruscan granulation originally used by goldsmiths. The craft requires multiple steps and is extremely tedious, to say the least. Enamel is first worked into threads of different diameters, before these threads are chipped off bit by bit to form beads of various sizes. The beads are then sorted by colour and applied to the dial successively to assemble an image, with intermediate firings to set and fuse the enamel. As different colours of enamel fuse at different temperatures, there is a clearly-defined order for the assembly process; up to 30 firings are necessary, and each dial requires nearly a month to complete. Like shaded enamel, enamel granulation is a very recent development, and Cartier is reviving it in its Maison des Métiers d’Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Metallic Content

A version of this story was first published in 2016. It has been udated with new images and information for this current issue

Paillonné is among the rarest enamelling techniques today, and practically synonymous with Jaquet Droz, which mainly works on special creations these days. The manufacture did have full-time enamellists who don’t just produce enamel dials, but also train artisans to perpetuate this know-how. The “paillon” here refers to the small ornamental motifs that are created from gold leaf, and are the calling card of the technique. Essentially, paillonné enamelling involves setting paillons within enamel to form patterns, with regular geometric ones being the norm. Emblematic of this technique is the Patek Philippe
Ref. 5077/100G models, as seen here. The technique begins with a layer of coloured enamel that is first fired to set it. Upon this layer, the paillons are positioned, before translucent enamel is applied and fired, thus “locking” the paillons in. Additional steps can be taken to create even more intricate designs. Before the coloured enamel layer is applied, for instance, the substrate surface may first be decorated with guilloché, which basically creates flinqué enamel that is then decorated with paillons over it. Alternatively, the substrate surface can be hand engraved – there are no hard and fast rules to this.

In lieu of regular patterns, Jaeger-LeCoultre opted for a twist on the technique, by distributing flecks of silver randomly on the dial instead. The result can be seen in the Hybris Artistica Duomètre Sphérotourbillon Enamel, whose enamel dial mimics the look of lapis lazuli. While not paillonné enamelling per se, Vacheron Constantin’s use of hand-applied precious powder deserves a mention here. In the manufacture’s Métiers d’Art Villes Lumières timepieces, gold, platinum, diamond, and pearl powders are affixed to the surface of the enamel dial by Japanese enamel artisan Yoko Imai. Instead of being covered with a layer of enamel, these particles sit atop them, and catch the light variously to mimic a bird’s eye view of a city at night.

Brush Strokes

Enamel painting is simply painting with enamel pigments rather than some other medium. The technique is challenging not just due to the canvas’s size, which makes it miniature painting as well, but also because of the multiple firings needed to vitrify and set the enamels, colour by colour by colour. Given the level of detail that can be achieved (as seen in the Patek Philippe Ref. 5531R here), however, this is
one of the few techniques that are capable of making their subjects almost lifelike. Consider Slim d’Hermès Pocket Panthère, which has the eponymous animal rendered in this technique, for example. Jaeger-LeCoultre has many examples, courtesy of its in-house workshops.

Grisaille enamel can be considered a subset of enamel painting, and is a specific method of painting white on black to create monochromic imagery. The black canvas is grand feu enamel that must first be applied, fired, and then polished to create a perfectly smooth surface that’s free of imperfections. This preparatory step is, in and of itself, already very challenging, as minute flaws are extremely easy to spot on such a surface – this explains why most watch brands offer white enamel dials, but black onyx or lacquer dials instead of enamel. Upon this black canvas, the enamellist paints using Blanc de Limoges, which is a white enamel whose powder is more finely ground than normal. To create micro details, fine brushes, needles, and even cactus thorns are used, and the dial is painted and fired multiple times to create the nuanced paintings grisaille enamel is known for.

Owing to its complexity, grisaille enamel is rarely seen. There are brands that still offer metiers ‘dart watches with them though, sometimes even with their own take on the technique. In the Métiers d’Art Hommage à l’Art de la Danse collection, Vacheron Constantin opted to use translucent brown enamel for the dial base, to impart a greater sense of depth, while softening the contrast between the two colours. Patek Philippe and Van Cleef utilise the technique in models featured earlier in this story.

This article first appeared on WOW’s Legacy 2025 Issue

For more on the latest in luxury watch reads from WOW, click here.

A. Lange & Söhne CEO Wilhelm Schmid on Preserving Tradition and Embracing Change

The Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen showing off its nighttime face

Tradition is at the forefront of our thoughts when we work on the annual Legacy issue. This is about as surprising as finding sand on a beach. The Legacy issue is our dedicated investigation of watchmaking histories and standards, right down to practices and personalities. Tradition obviously plays a vital role. Occasionally, this takes on unexpected meaning or, as some philosopher somewhere noted, it becomes meta. By no means do we mean transcendent here, rather that some stories become a tradition about tradition, in an issue focused on tradition.

If we felt like it, for example, we could have turned this very interview with A. Lange & Söhne CEO Wilhelm Schmid into a story about an interview, that references all the interviews we have done with him and other leaders at the brand (Tony de Haas and Tino Bobe). As we have previously discussed, these are the trio that typically face the press for A. Lange & Söhne and we have interviewed one or more every year since 2019. What is so ‘meta’ about that you might wonder. Well, it refers to a similar line we used in an older story where we specifically acknowledged that this pattern exists. Now, that which is meta can be useful – just think about meta studies, which group individual studies together to deliver new insights – and we should like to bring this perspective to our A. Lange & Söhne stories.

A useful example here is our interview with Schmid two years ago in Singapore, where he told us we should not hold our breath if we expected to buy a Lange 1 (then). Meeting him this year at Watches and Wonders Geneva, Schmid said that the situation has improved, in part as a response to the brand’s efforts to move its business to its own retail network. He cautions that things are still far from perfect.

"Our strategy is to increase our capacity because we will need the increased capacity within the different segments of watches"

This exchange only happened this year because of the exchange last year, and probably in part because the people involved are the same; you cannot have failed to notice that I do the vast majority of all interviews. Back to the point about availability, Schmid also reiterated that the Glashütte brand still makes approximately 5,000 watches. This number has been in our pages and online across many sources for years. It is supported by de Haas’ assertion that to make more of one model or another, fewer will be made of something else. When asked about this, Schmid nodded sagely. “When we introduce something new, we have to cut something existing. It is not possible (or good) to simply layer more references on top of all the existing ones (without some pruning) because in the end who is going to make all these watches?” said Schmid, with the barest of shrugs.

From all our encounters with him, we know Schmid to be a serious and compassionate man. He would never take any step that endangered A. Lange & Söhne. Happily, you do not have to take our word for this. Uniquely amongst his Richemont peers (A. Lange & Söhne is a Richemont brand), Schmid, de Haas and Bobe have been around a long time indeed. The latter two, along with communications boss Arnd Einhorn, have been with A. Lange & Söhne almost since the beginning (collectively). These guys would not have stuck by Schmid if he was not the straight shooter that he seems to be. Schmid himself would not have made it this long (he became CEO in 2011) if he had not been a positive force for A. Lange & Söhne.

Of course, we realise that opinions of A. Lange & Söhne and Schmid have changed dramatically over the last five years as the brand’s watches have become somewhat unattainable and prices have reacted accordingly. The man at the top has answers to those questions, which boils down to reiterating that A. Lange & Söhne is not interested in making more watches to chase growth.

"Our strategy is to increase our capacity because we will need the increased capacity within the different segments of watches," said Schmid. "This means increasing the capacity of watchmaking hours that we can apply to each watch. Growth will come from more complexity throughout the range and not from higher production numbers."

And on that note, we invite you to follow our conversation with Schmid and stay till the end for an important note about the Odysseus Chronograph.

The Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen and the Datograph Up/Down (right) are both part of the Saxonia collection

It is the 25th anniversary of the Datograph and you are presenting two very special watches to honour this moment. Given that these are, shall we say, variations on a theme, how have people received them so far (at WWG)?

Let me begin with the Datograph Up/Down – you know that’s with a white gold case and a blue dial; this is a combination we've never used before. And remember, our clients are watch collectors, so they always look for the thing they don't have (and that would be the previous limited edition with a blue dial). This they can't have because we never did it again. For this limited edition Datograph Up/Down, we will produce in a slightly bigger number – I mean, 125 for us, that's a lot. For most brands, that is just nothing.

And then the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen, which has two things we like: special materials and a new calibre. Of course, the calibre has a lot in common with something familiar to collectors. Tell us about what is different here.

First of all, yes the calibre is based on the existing one (that debuted in 2016), but it we had to do a lot of work on the reworked version here. For example, we had to rearrange the whole moon phase indication (which may not be obvious at first glance) and removed the power reserve display.

(The conversation then went into the technical weeds so we present the official A. Lange & Söhne response on this point from the FAQ on the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen. We present the information below as it was communicated to us.)

Why does the movement only consist of 684 parts compared to the 729 parts of the standard version? The further development of the movement also led to a reduction in the total number of parts. For example, the absence of the power-reserve indicator reduces the number of parts, but the additional components for realising the "Lumen" function do not compensate for this difference.

Is the movement new compared to the existing Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon? Yes, due to the special design features of a "Lumen" model and the omission of a power-reserve indicator, the movement has been significantly enhanced.

So it's not like the same movement, just with lumen. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. When you see the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen alongside all the chronographs (standard datographs), tourbillons, perpetual calendars and the honeygold (limited editions), this one watch represents everything.

On that note about gold, a couple of points – first, is this a signal on directions?

We are very clear in our direction. We have five traditional watch families and one that is quite contemporary in its design. So mostly, we are about very traditional watchmaking; we launched the Odysseus family in 2019 (to do something different), but one reason is definitely to give us a space where we can play with steel...if we play with titanium, if we play with the combination of white gold and rubber, this is what we could do with (in the Odysseus collection). We produce very, very few steel watches a year. This is to say we don't produce even in the hundreds. We do not touch the other five families (with this sort of contemporary experimentation). So, in this way we can extend the playground of our design a little bit without losing our DNA and we protect the five families that traditionally have been around for a long time. Steel (and other non-precious materials) is not our core business. Precious metals like white gold and platinum, yellow gold and honey gold, that’s the sort of watches we are making. That’s our core business.

And so honeygold then, which we are always excited about! Will we see more watches in this material? It is one of the rare precious materials that has a functional benefit to match the aesthetic ones.

Yeah, but honeygold will always be used for limited editions, and we never produced so many. I think it's about 2,000 in total. That’s how many we made in honeygold in total since we launched it in 2000. It is a very hard material so it is very hard to work with; it requires special treatment, and even in the event of refurbishment (for servicing), it also requires (special handling). You know, you say the hardness is an advantage to wearers and yes that’s true; it is also a liability in terms of production and servicing. Honeygold is difficult to machine because it is very hard (as opposed to regular gold, thus requiring specific tools and procedures). Therefore, there are not many who can do it and you have to be sensible about how many you want to make. If you make thousands, that will mean thousands to eventually service and the case requires an oxygen-free environment to refurbish it. Making more (than we do) is just not sustainable.

The new watches this year are both boutique editions, but A. Lange & Söhne is mainly available only in your own boutiques. Tell us how far along you are in the process of bringing the retail business in-house and how that has impacted availability and accessibility.

We are about 90 percent (own-boutique) worldwide. At the same time, it is not that we just sent our retail partners an email telling them we are not working with them (with immediate effect). Usually, we have had a great relationship with them over time, and it takes time (to port things over to our own boutiques). There are customers behind (any given) retailer, and we try to serve them as much as possible on whatever was promised on our behalf. We are still in that process; however, because we have reduced (the external retail network) a lot, I can tell you that there is a certain level of availability at boutiques now. It is not perfect but it is better than what it was 18 months ago... or six months ago! We think we will only see the full impact of our strategy in the next 18 months <this conversation took place in April so it means the third quarter of next year.

Dial-side view of calibre L952.4 that powers the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen

Right, so how do you manage all the relationships with collectors because we always get questions about how the journey works, to use the community term?

There is a process, yes, and there is even a system for it because I don’t like things that cannot be systematised. I think you get questions like that from people who don’t have a relationship with us because otherwise they would know! It all starts with getting to know someone at the boutique <which means visiting and having an informal chat, to summarise – Ed>. I’m always amazed by this kind of thing... I mean, if you want to make a friend, you don’t go out into the street and shout ‘I want a friend!’ and a friend comes along. In our personal lives, we all know how to make friends...how to establish relationships. It is based on (individuals) getting to know each other and establishing trust. Going beyond something purely transactional. So yeah, in the watch industry, there are those people who want to have the rarest watches immediately. They complain a lot, and we all know or have an idea about what they would do with the watches when they get them.

Has that situation improved, with the flippers?

Absolutely! Because we now know who is buying our watches. You know, anyone can do what he or she wants with their property – that’s not for me to decide. What we want is to understand if (someone visiting the boutique) is a real collector because collectors are our core market. Or is this person someone that buys and then sells quickly? We can do that ourselves; we don’t need a middleman. You asked also about people who want one great watch from us, and just the one. We’re happy to do that but (the person who wants one piece for a special occasion) is not our target. We target collectors who buy watches! They go through our collections to see what they like, and build up their collections. It is a longer journey that does not take just one year but years! That’s why we have to deliver novelties every year...that’s why we have to go the extra mile (all the time) because the collector is a very educated person.

Let us close on both availability and production with a follow-up on the Odysseus Chronograph, which Tony told us would be ready to go into production this year.

Yes, it is... It has moved from prototyping to manufacturing but it will take longer than usual (per standard chronographs at A. Lange & Söhne) because this is new territory for the watchmakers, as you heard from Tony already. It has no comparison for us from anything existing so the calibre is really being made from scratch. The watchmakers still need practice and experience to establish a routine for the automatic chronograph

The Lange 1 Moon Phase and Little Lange 1 Moon Phase, both in pink gold. Season’s greetings from A. Lange & Sohne!

This article first appeared on WOW’s Legacy 2025 Issue

For more on the latest in luxury watch reads from WOW, click here.

Tissot’s PRX Breaks New Ground

As we have written more than a few times, it is difficult to find exciting watchmaking content that is also accessible. All too often, as novelty value increases, so too do price points – this is not unexpected given that watchmaking also operates on economies of scale. Take the forged carbon material, which was used exclusively by high-end watchmakers who charged a premium for it. The Tissot Sideral – subject of WOW's cover story from exactly a year ago – changed all that in dramatic fashion. It turns out that this was not a one-off for the brand, as part of WOW’s Autumn Issue #74 cover story examines.

This year, instead of revisiting the history of material experimentation at Tissot, we thought we would check in once again with CEO Sylvain Dolla for his thoughts. As it happens, Dolla is now into his 20th year at Swatch Group – he originally worked on the Swatch Paparazzi watch – and is, by his own admission, a true watch afficionado. Prior to taking charge at Tissot, Dolla spent 15 productive years at Hamilton and we are tempted to lay the credit for that brand’s successes at his feet too. That kind of thinking is complicated by the fact that Swatch Group is, well, a group, meaning there is more than one chef responsible for any given dish.

The PRX that captivated us in 2021, and especially the automatic version that featured on the cover of the Autumn issue that year, might actually be called Dolla’s. This is because he discovered – or rediscovered – the original 1970s model that would inspire the PRX, as he has told a number of publications, including us, Time and Tide and WatchPro, most recently. It was most assuredly not a watch that emerged from a focus group, as Dolla memorably explained to Alexandre Lindz of WatchAdvisor.

Runaway Success

If you wonder what it is about the PRX that explains its commercial prowess, this probably goes some way to explain matters. Basically, a watch enthusiast discovered a hidden treasure in the archives of the brand he was leading and had a gut instinct about it. Sounds about right for a successful sports elegance watch in the 2020s.

This issue, despite the soloist on the cover, the story is really an ensemble performance, running the gamut from the PRX Forged Carbon piece to the PRX Grendizer, a couple of new dial variants and the PR516. That said, if this is news to you then perhaps you have not had the full introduction to the PRX itself. Well, at any rate, you may not have heard what we had to say about the collection.

If you are discovering the Tissot PRX for the first time here, you have missed out on one of the biggest stories in Swiss watchmaking in recent memory. The unassuming quartz version of this model, also called PRX, was so successful it sold out in several markets. In 2021, no less. A few years later, the collection has made its mark and leveled up a few times – it has become a sign of the times, in a way that Tissot could not have foreseen with the first watch. As we noted three years ago, that is not the original watch and there is interesting history here.

Colourful Ensemble

You can sum up what makes the PRX special in just one word: desirability. We recognised this in 2021 and we stand by it – retrofuturism is a powerful design force in watchmaking today, perhaps more so than ever before. Whether the 40mm time-only watch or the more diminutive 35mm follow-up; the quartz debutant or the automatic chronograph; and now the new colourful variants, at least one PRX seems to be on everyone’s to-buy list. Probably more than one, if we are being honest, and this is where the new dial options come in. There are six such watches (three 40mm automatic models, one automatic 35mm model, and two 35mm quartz PRX variants), with dials ranging from gradiant blue to brushed pink. See the pictures of the real watches accompanying this story for references, which work better than descriptions anyway.

To reiterate and reinforce what we wrote in 2021, by everyone’s to-buy list here, we actually mean the rare convergence between collectors and people looking for nice everyday watches. The proportions work out for daily wear, unless your wrist is very large, in which case the 13.5mm thick PRX Automatic Chronograph might work – do also see the PR516 manual-winder later in this story.

On the subject of lugs here, the integrated bracelet is important because how the watch wears depends entirely on it. The virtually non-existent lugs of this roughly barrel-shaped case ensure a great fit, even if you need it to fit under your sleeve. Exceptionally form-fitting sleeves will be a problem though, making the slimmer quartz model (as little as 9.6mm versus up to 11.2mm for the automatic) a more logical decision. The sapphire crystal is flat, top and bottom alike so the thickness measurement is accurate here. Now, this is a total watch design, as mentioned, and it has sporty connotations. Tissot recognises and references this directly in the name PRX, which stands for Precise, Robust and water-resistant to 100 meters (X means 10 bar, with bar being a gauge of pressure). All that aside, PRX is a pretty cool name.

Future Tense

Tissot PRX Powermatic 80 models with refreshed dials

Just as the PRX confronts us with a new view of Tissot, it also opens the door to entire chapters of the brand’s history that may have been neglected in recent years. Indeed, when Tissot began using automatic movements with the silicon balance springs that Swatch Group developed, we were tremendously excited. While these technically advanced mechanical components were, in 2018, still mainly in use at Omega, Blancpain and Breguet, we never thought that a balance spring should mark anything as high-end. After all, no one is going to see this, or recognise it even if they do see it. Yes, even the wearer. What mattered, and still matters, is the watch.

In 2018, this was the Tissot Ballade and it was a handsome watch that could have been yours for less than USD1,000. The market seemed more skeptical, especially given the necessary increase in prices. We were convinced there was interest in automatic watches from Tissot that went beyond the basic ETA variants. Bear in mind that Tissot makes gold wristwatches and pocket watches, and its history is marked by a desire to bring innovation to the largest possible group. This is the true starting line for the story of the Tissot PRX.

Now we get to the direct origins of the PRX in general. Tissot says the current model references a Seastar watch from 1978, but you might just as easily link it with the PR516 models from the early 1970s. To get the official perspective on the PRX and its place in Tissot’s history, we went directly to Dolla. “Since the PRX is a model originally released in 1978, our objective was to give a renewal to this piece that could suit today's vintage craze. It shows Tissot's desire to remain tied to its roots, while being able to adapt to current trends. Nowadays and more than ever, new challenges naturally drive new strategies, but it will never change our background and history nonetheless.”

PRX Grendizer

When news about the Tissot collaboration with the classic manga and anime UFO Robot Grendizer emerged, we could scarcely believe it. This is certainly a first for Tissot and marks possibly the first such collaboration between a Swiss watchmaker and the creators of a Japanese comic book, which is what manga is. We were so pumped for this that we were torn about not having it for the cover; the story here is very rich, but admittedly, for pure watchmaking content, the Forged Carbon model is the right choice. Nevertheless, since that watch gets its due elsewhere as well, we devote a bit of extra time to the Tissot PRX Grendizer.

Although this PRX Grendizer is just one model, it may yet herald more cross-cultural adventures for Tissot. The decision to go with the PRX model, an inherently 1970s proposition, and a manga popular in Switzerland in the 1970s is perhaps loaded with meaning. It probably had some impact on the childhood experiences of a number of high-ranking watch industry executives, the most famous and public of whom is, of course, Max Busser. In fact, it was the first MB&F watch that brought Grendizer into the headspace of editors because Busser began talking about how his childhood obsessions were feeding his creativity. Well, it turns out Dolla was a fan as a child too... More than 20 years later, a major force in Swiss watchmaking – part of the largest industrial group of watchmakers in the world – is embracing Grendizer just as a remake of the series, Grendizer U debuts.

On that note, the manga deserves a short introduction all its own. Created by the father-figure of the super robot genre, Go Nagai, the plot concerns an alien prince who flees the destruction of his world with his super robot called Grendizer. Finding shelter on earth, the prince and the robot he commands find themselves defending the world against the same enemy that laid waste to his home. In tribute, the dial also bears the original Japanese title of the series: UFOロボグレンダイザー.

This is only the opinion of the editorial staff but Grendizer is a powerful symbol, even for those without any grounding in the world of the manga. The image of Grendizer, stamped onto the blue dial of the PRX UFO Robot Grendizer, is magnetic. You do not have to take our word for it – just look at it, and imagine it in low light, when the yellow SuperLuminova allows the bust of the robot to literally glow. In this situation, you will also notice that the hands and markers of the watch, also treated with Super-Luminova glow a different colour (blue). No doubt this was done for legibility reasons but it does provide the watch with a lively spirit, approaching a certain view of neon-drenched Tokyo. Finally, note that the second hand, with its Harken motif is not Super-Luminova treated.

PR516

The second and final watch we will get into is the PR516, which is a chronograph we have had awhile to consider since it debuted earlier this year. This is a significant chronograph by any measure, given that it is a manual-winder. We were speechless when we learned of this piece, which is unprecedented at Tissot – it also showcases the newly developed Valjoux A05.291 movement. Tissot says it is derived from the workhorse 7753 calibre that plenty of enthusiasts are familiar with. This move was so significant that Tissot sent out a technical press release for it, which itself is quite an event. For some context, remember that it is usually only the most traditional of watchmakers who make manual-winding chronographs, and they do so to honour the legacy of fine watchmaking.

Obviously, a manual-winder from Tissot was unexpected to say the least, and we will say that there is no meticulous hand-finishing to admire via the exhibition caseback. This is not the point though – what is interesting is that Tissot thinks there is an appetite for this sort of watch. On its website, Tissot makes a special place for chronographs, and the PR516 is the only one listed in the “mechanical” category. If an enthusiast finds this watch while looking for a PRX, for example, he will certainly be pleasantly surprised – it is always fun to watch a manual chronograph calibre in action, without the rotor to get in the way. At SGD 2,620, the PR516 offers a nigh unbeatable proposition from the value perspective too. It must be said here that Tissot is certainly leveraging the industrial capabilities of Swatch Group to offer a chronograph with up to 68 hours of power reserve and an antimagnetic escapement featuring precision laser regulation. Suffice to say that nothing like this exists at this price point.

Photography by ching@greenplasticsoldiers
Styling by Gregory Woo

This article first appeared on WOW’s Autumn Issue #74

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The Midas Touch: The Gift of Proprietary Gold in Watchmaking

Everose Gold

These are all complicated points and we will be covering them briefly. We bring this point to the fore because fine watchmaking has been in the public eye itself recently for the investment angle. Specifically, some types of watches might qualify as alternative investment assets. To be clear, we have always argued (or at least cautioned) against this but we acknowledge reality and there are many of you, dear readers, who are intrigued by the potential of watches to not only retain value but also to grow it.

Some years ago, before we dared to comment on the phenomenon of investing in watches, we hinted at what a dark world this might herald. It was an Editor’s Note with the catchy title Watches as Currency, and watches cased in precious metal are the personification of this idea. If gold, in particular, is a kind of currency, then wearing watches cased in this material will really be like having cash strapped to one’s wrist. Well, perhaps just a digital display that indicates how much the watch in question is valued at. A good way to grab the attention of thieves you say? Welcome to the world of those who rock all-gold watches, and Singapore might just be the safest place on earth to do this.

As a counterpoint, the watch-buying community knows all too well that the best deals available on the secondary market are timepieces cased in precious metals. That means any precious metal, not just gold. To be blunt, these are the types of watches that shed the most value, including examples from the biggest names in Swiss watchmaking. Generally speaking, the why of this is hard to explain, especially versus amped-up valuations on steel watches, but the hypothesis (from specialists, including us) is that the precious metal recommended retail prices have always been too high. This is especially true when any given brand also offers a model in a non-precious metal variant too.

Hublot Big Bang Integrated Time Only King Gold

Magic Gold

Hublot flexed its materials science muscle in 2012 with its demonstration of the properties of Magic Gold. While the manufacture was known for its forward- thinking ways prior to this, its fame was tied closely to synthetic materials. Hublot also has a proprietary gold alloy called King Gold, which owes its superior reddish hue to a higher-than-normal mix of copper, but this achievement was dwarfed by the arrival of Magic Gold, a type of metal matrix composite (MMC), which we covered briefly in Summer. Hublot is certainly not the only watch brand experimenting with MMCs but we focus here because Magic Gold is probably the most familiar material for watch cases, and remains a part of the core collection – Cerachrom and Ceragold are a different matter.

When it debuted, Magic Gold promised a golden revolution of sorts because it was meant to be a scratch-resistant gold alloy. It does not take expert knowledge to realise that gold is a relatively soft and dense metal that is prone to scratching – steel is significantly harder but no less of a scratch magnet, as they say in watch collecting circles. Hublot’s mission was to create and deliver a material that would qualify as 18k gold (as most gold watch cases are) that also exhibited a degree of scratch resistance that was all but impossible for a metal alloy. The manufacture decided to add ceramic (either as continuous strands or particulates) to a gold matrix to achieve this end. Nothing like this had been tried before in watchmaking so Hublot turned to the materials science experts at the EPFL in Lausanne. The manufacture has its own research and development facility, but fundamental research is impossible to do in a silo.

The materials specialists began with selecting their raw materials. This included 24k gold, aluminium, and boron carbide – boron carbide is a ceramic and is the third hardest substance known to humans. The proportions used were as follows: 75 percent (gold), 3 percent (aluminium) and 22 percent (boron carbide). Boron carbide powder is first compacted into a desired shape before being sintered to form a porous solid. Pure molten 24k gold is then forced into these pores under 200 bars of pressure – Hublot once described this as forcing water into a room full of footballs (EuropaStar, 2011). This revealing metaphor indicates that rather than the ceramic being the matrix that holds gold, it is the other way around. This is perfectly in line with Magic Gold being an MMC of course. Needless to say, Magic Gold is harder and more resistant to scratches than traditional gold alloys, while still maintaining the luxurious appearance and properties of gold. How tough is it, exactly? Well, apparently only diamond tools can make a dent in Magic Gold.

To machine Magic Gold, CNC machines equipped with ultrasonic cutters and diamond-tipped tools had to be specially ordered from Germany. Our last update on Magic Gold noted that 28 bezels in Magic Gold took three weeks to machine, and that only between 30-40 complete cases could be produced monthly. This is unlikely to have changed as Magic Gold remains truly rare in the Hublot assortment. It is no small thing that this innovation remains in play, and it has had more than 10 years now of testing Magic Gold in the wild. No solution is perfect, and Magic Gold may yet receive an update in the years to come.

Hublot Square Bang Unico Ceramic Magic Gold

Sedna Gold

Qualified honesty has everything to do with why watch brands with big industrial bases tend to flex materials science credentials with creations that advertise their expertise boldly. While Sedna gold was once associated exclusively with Omega, which introduced it in 2013, it is now a staple part of Blancpain offerings too. Needless to say, both brands are a part of the Swatch Group universe and the presence of Sedna gold at both brands is only one marker of the synergies at play. With this fact in mind, we will acknowledge the material developments with precious metals at Omega but would be remiss in our duties as a specialist commentator if we did not note the great work done at Rado, Tissot and Swatch itself in the area of ceramics, composites and polymers (various plastics).

All of the above is just proof positive that Swatch Group knows how to do fundamental research into new materials and how to industrialise the same. While in 2016 we wrote that Omega was making waves with its anti-magnetic movements, today we could report that many Swatch Group brands have followed suit. LiquidMetal, a zirconium-based amorphous alloy that gets inlaid into ceramic bezels using a combination of high heat and high pressure, was also deployed by Omega first, but has since been adopted by Blancpain. When it comes to case materials proper, Omega was also first out of the gate with Ceragold in 2012, which was a combination of ceramic and gold, although not quite rising to the level of Magic Gold.

Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Cortina Watch 50th Anniversary

While Ceragold is indeed a niche material for Omega, Sedna gold is anything but. Named after the red planetoid which was once the furthest observed object of that mass in our solar system, the 18k alloy is a proprietary blend of gold, copper and palladium. Like other rose gold alloys, Sedna owes its distinctive colour to its copper content. The palladium content functions to give the colour long-term stability, much as platinum does in other alloys. While Omega has used Sedna gold aggressively, with the material mostly supplanting traditional rose gold in all collections, Blancpain is currently limiting it to just the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe collection.

It would be remiss of us to neglect Omega’s other precious metal alloy efforts in recent years, which range from Canopus gold to perhaps the best-known of all proprietary blends, Moonshine gold. Of course, there the key messaging was handled by Swatch, which actually used it in a version of the MoonSwatch. We say this is the most widely recognised brand-owned gold alloy because Swatch has a huge reach – the Mission to Moonshine watch is probably one of the most popular Swatch models of 2023 – and it never fails to mention that Moonshine is an Omega trademark.

Honey Gold

Also returning in this updated list is the alloy introduced by A. Lange & Söhne in 2010. It originally appeared in the Homage to F.A. Lange trio of limited edition watches and is known officially as Honeygold; we typically list it as honey gold as a matter of house style. The Glashütte manufacture has been remarkably consistent in keeping the use of honey gold as limited as possible. It was only five years after its auspicious and audacious debut that A. Lange & Söhne decided to roll it out again, this time at Watches and Wonders 2015.

At this Hong Kong precursor to the grand Geneva show, the 1815 200th Anniversary F.A. Lange debuted as a 200-piece limited edition. Subsequently, honey gold has featured in a handful of releases, not all of which are related at all to F. A. Lange. This year, it is the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold Lumen, which features prominently elsewhere this issue. Other key models in this proprietary gold alloy are the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater (last year) and standard Zeitwerk (2021) watches; a second trio of Homage to F.A. Lange watches (2020); and Langematik Perpetual (2019).

Aesthetically, honey gold’s hue falls between its pink and yellow siblings, with a noticeably lower saturation – it is paler, yet redder than yellow gold, and has a marked resemblance to honey (no duh). This alloy’s colour stems from its higher proportions of copper vis-à-vis regular yellow gold, and the addition of zinc; obviously, this is still an 18k alloy so the proportions are in the remaining 25% of the alloy that are not gold.

Honey gold was not developed by A. Lange & Sohne with only aesthetics in mind; this was not even the primary reason. Instead, the manufacture was keen on creating a gold alloy that was more scratch-resistant for its cases. With a hardness of 320 Vickers, honey gold has around twice the hardness of standard 18k yellow gold, which lives in the 150 to 160 Vickers range. The result, by all accounts, is a hardier watch case that is less prone to dings and scratches,

Despite its greater hardness, honey gold is not necessarily more difficult to work. Any equipment that is primed to machine steel cases, which are even harder, is more than capable of handling honey gold; A. Lange & Söhne does not make cases anyway. When used in movement components, however, the material does present challenges to the finisseurs. The Homage to F.A. Lange watches have balance cocks executed in honey gold rather than German silver, as is typically the case. Hand-engraving these pieces with the manufacture’s signature floral motif is thus more difficult and time-consuming, while also requiring a special set of burins with harder blades.

This page: IWC Portugieser Perpetual Calendar

Armour Gold

A recent addition to the parade of proprietary gold alloys, Armour Gold is IWC’s first ride into the realm of precious metals but certainly not its first rodeo in the material innovation circuit. Like many of the watch brands featured here, IWC is known for playing with materials, including being the first top-tier brand to use ceramic for its cases. This became an IWC specialty in some ways, with observers always looking forward to hardy yet aesthetically pleasing materials from the brand’s new releases. In this way, Armour Gold is very much playing to established strengths in IWC’s watches-for-professionals game.

In our chat with the professionals at IWC in Geneva, we got into the substance of Armour Gold, in passing. The gist of it had to do with functional relevance, even when the matter of aesthetics was weightier. So, yes, Armour Gold does purport to live up to its name; in fact, every alloy on this list has some degree of functional distinctiveness, though we did not perform any tests ourselves. IWC introduced its proprietary gold rather quietly, back in 2019; a number of journalists were surprised that Armour Gold was not new for this year.

IWC Portugieser Hand- Wound Tourbillon Day & Night

For IWC, the pertinent qualities of Armour Gold are its resistance to wear and we know the manufacture would not have bothered if it was just to have a different colour. When the material was introduced with the Big Pilot’s Watch Constant-Force Tourbillon Edition Le Petit Prince, the brand noted that it was its first experiment with so-called hard gold. This kind of gold is approximately five to 10 times more wear-resistant than standard red gold. By wear-resistant, we understand this to mean that the material resists scratches better than regular gold alloys. In another press release for a watch that used Armour Gold, the brand noted that it achieves these levels of resistance and hardness thanks to “improved microstructure,” though it is not evident what exactly this means.

At present, IWC only offers nine models in Armour Gold, which includes three novelties this year (Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 44 with black or white dial; and Portugieser Hand-Wound Tourbillon Day & Night).

This article first appeared on WOW’s Autumn Issue #74

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Blue Monday: The New Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona reference 126506

When we first saw the new Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona at Watches and Wonders Geneva earlier this year, we thought it was the standout from the assortment at Rolex. That effectively means it would be one of the world’s most talked about watches this year. If you scan just the pages of our summer issue for World of Watches, you might begin to think that this may be true. To make a long story short, it is not — while the 60^th anniversary of the world’s most important chronograph sees the watch on the podium, the comments sections on the Internet are very keen on two colourful stablemates.

The world has been here before, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cosmograph Daytona. The special platinum version of the 2013 chronograph eventually proved to be very influential. Bear that in mind when looking at the 2023 version with its remarkable exhibition caseback (a first for the collection). The platinum model, reference 126506, is primarily a reference to the 2013 model, also because the aforementioned exhibition caseback allows us to talk directly about the new calibre 4131. This new calibre features the Rolex Chronergy escapement and other small improvements (reportedly to the self-winding system) but the official specifications remain unchanged.

To begin with, the watch retains all its signature features and does not see the introduction of a date mechanism or anything drastic like that. There is still enough that is different about this new reference, some of which are surprising. Space is certainly one area we can get into, because although the published specifications remain 40mm, the watch feels larger. The new collection does play with spaces everywhere, including the subdials whose tracks are now noticeably slimmer. The case itself is slimmer than the outgoing model, but the specifications say nothing about this.

caseback of Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona reference 126506

It should be noted that the visual and tactile changes will only be obvious to people who have worn and handled the latest reference and the outgoing one. If you have experience with more versions of this storied chronograph, you will have a deeper appreciation for the evolutionary journey of the Daytona even if you do have a favourite set of features. If you are totally new to the Daytona, then this will not matter at all. In fact, things will be clearer in some ways because Rolex is moving towards standardising elements of the Daytona, including the shape of the lugs (now symmetrical in all versions).

The bezel ring, an immediately recognisable change for 2023, is also consistent throughout the range of five current model references. This ring is in the same material as the case, although models with precious metal bezels will obviously not have this feature. Where it is deployed, the bezel remains completely in Cerachrom, not as an insert — it has just gotten a frame now, possibly for protective reasons but this is merely speculation on our part.

This article was first published on Issue #69 of World of Watches.

All photos courtesy of Rolex.

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IWC’s Perpetual Legacy: Celebrating Kurt Klaus and the Evolution of a Watchmaking Icon

As you read this issue, a titan of watchmaking will have just celebrated his 90th birthday. Plenty of watches make it well past this mark but this reminds us that mere mortals often do not, even an august personage such as Kurt Klaus. In a leap year that sees the WOW team pay special attention to perpetual calendars, we were nevertheless surprised to learn of this momentous occasion while doing research on the aforementioned complication. Klaus is, of course, most famous for his seminal work on the perpetual calendar for IWC, where he made a mark that is still felt today. If you have an IWC perpetual calendar from the Klaus era onwards, you bear testament to this legacy.

The perpetual calendar at IWC has two distinct phases – before Kurt Klaus and after Kurt Klaus. As noted in our special in the Autumn issue of WOW, the perpetual calendar has not had many significant developments in the last 100 years. One of the few developments worth taking note of was Klaus’ work in 1980s. According to IWC and plenty of published reports, Klaus was IWC’s head watchmaker in the early 1980s, and he had it in mind to do the unthinkable – improve on the mechanical perpetual calendar. To cut the suspense, this would go on to become the criminally underrated Da Vinci Chronograph Perpetual Calendar in 1985. Them’s fighting words, as they say, but it all makes sense when you consider that the all-indications-adjusted-by-one-crown system emerged from this multi-complication.

Of course, that means all the contemporary IWC perpetual calendars, including the four that debuted at Watches and Wonders Geneva in April, share this characteristic. The brand once again notes what a boon this system is for users. To explain a little here, before Klaus’ innovation in the 1980s, each calendar indication – including the moon phase – had its own adjustment mechanism. This was usually a recessed pusher on the case flanks, and plenty of perpetual calendars maintain the same system even now. So, if your perpetual calendar winds down and you leave it alone while wearing other watches, you will then have to adjust each calendar indication forward to the right ones. If you have left the watch alone for a long while, this can get quite tedious.

Quick-Setting

Portugieser Perpetual Calendar movement calibre 52616

Kurt Klaus figured out the logical solution here, using the very grand lever that kept all indications synched up in the course of normal running. He proposed synchronising all the calendar information such that adjusting one element automatically adjusts all the others. So, if the 24-hour wheel is advanced by the user to the tune of one full revolution, the day, date, moon phase and year also advance accordingly. As a quick note, this is not the same as setting the date by advancing the minute hand 24 times…calendar adjustments are done at position one of the crown while time-setting is at position 2. That is precisely what you will find in the four Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 44 watches, all new for 2024 — but this is also true of every other kind of perpetual calendar in the current IWC families. These four watches will serve to illustrate the qualities of IWC perpetual calendars, and they happen to be in the same collection so they share other characteristics besides.

All are approximately 44.4mm and 14.9mm thick, with the signature barely-there Portugieser bezel. This means there is a lot of dial real estate for the many indications of the IWC perpetual calendar, including the signature double moon phase at noon. Arguably, the Portugieser aesthetic is the best of all for the information-heavy perpetual calendar so you might be surprised to learn that this classic complication only debuted in the collection in 2003. The Big Pilot is a good fit too but that family looks its best with just the basics on the dial.

On that note, what do we have on the dial of these perpetual calendars then? Starting with the moon phase display is actually of the state of the moon’s phases as seen in the northern and southern hemispheres. At 3 o’clock, we find the date and power reserve within the same subdial, while at 9 o’clock, the day of the week shares another subdial with the running seconds. At 6 o’clock, the month indication is on its own. As usual, these displays create a subtle harmony on the dial, overall. Somewhat off by itself is the digital year display, at 10 o’clock.

Establishing a Legacy

Hard at work beneath the dial (the Horizon blue variant is a joy to behold in person) is the calibre 52616, which consists of a base movement with a long power reserve (7 days) and the perpetual calendar module dial-side alongside the motionworks. It is this calendar system that marks the genius of Kurt Klaus and establishes his legacy, as noted earlier. To return to that story then, Klaus figured out that the calendar system could be simplified and that it would be a great boon. As a result, calibre 52616 has something like 385 components but only 81 of those are related to the perpetual calendar module. According to IWC, Klaus had the idea of making the calendar module separate from the base movement. He also knew that by synchronising the calendar indications, including the moon phase display, he could do away with the standard correctors that afflicted most perpetual calendars. This would reduce the number of parts, allow for more robust cases and improve the user experience. For IWC, this represents something ideal, or close to it, because the brand has built up a reputation as a maker of tool watches.

Looking at the current crop of four watches, you might not immediately think ‘tool watch’ when you look at one. Like the other Horizon Blue and Dune dial variants, these Portugieser watches are cased in white gold. As for the Obsidian and Silver Moon dial variants, they are cased in Armor Gold. All four dials are not galvanised or PVD treated and the like. They are actually executed with 15 layers of transparent lacquer, further elevating the watches past the point of tool watches. Hammering home this point are the gold applique numerals, which are applied by hand. All told, IWC says there are up to 60 steps in the making of the dials.

Other details about the watches also belie notions of pure functionality. These include the Santoni alligator straps, which are in four matching shades, and the double box-glass sapphire crystals. Unusually, the hands of each model are gold-plated (rhodium for the Horizon Blue watch) rather than being solid as one might expect. This might get revisited later so look for changes in the specifications of these models if they make you do a double-take but have not yet made you pull the trigger. Pricewise, all the gold models here are north of SGD 60,000, which is good relative value.

This article will appear on WOW’s upcoming Legacy Issue

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The Alchemy of Gold: Watchmaking’s Most Innovative Alloys

Everose Gold

Some years ago, before we dared to comment on the phenomenon of investing in watches, we hinted at what a dark world this might herald. It was an Editor’s Note with the catchy title Watches as Currency and watches cased in precious metal are the personification of this idea. If gold, in particular, is a kind of currency, then wearing watches cased in this material will really be like having cash strapped to one’s wrist. Well perhaps just a digital display that indicates how much the watch in question is valued at. A good way to grab the attention of thieves you say? Welcome to the world of those who rock all-gold watches, and Singapore might just be the safest place on earth to do this.

Magic Gold

Hublot flexed its materials science muscle in 2012 with its demonstration of the properties of Magic Gold. While the manufacture was known for its forward-thinking ways prior to this, its fame was tied closely to synthetic materials. Hublot also has a proprietary gold alloy called King Gold, which owes its superior reddish hue to a higher-than-normal mix of copper, but this achievement was dwarfed by the arrival of Magic Gold, a type of metal matrix composite (MMC), which we covered briefly in Summer. Hublot is certainly not the only watch brand experimenting with MMCs but we focus here because Magic Gold is probably the most familiar material for watch cases, and remains a part of the core collection – Cerachrom and Ceragold are a different matter.

The materials specialists began with selecting their raw materials. This included 24k gold, aluminium, and boron carbide – boron carbide is a ceramic and is the third hardest substance known to humans. The proportions used were as follows: 75 percent (gold), three percent (aluminium) and 22 percent (boron carbide). Boron carbide powder is first compacted into a desired shape before being sintered to form a porous solid. Pure molten 24k gold is then forced into these pores under 200 bars of pressure – Hublot once described this as forcing water into a room full of footballs (EuropaStar, 2011). This revealing metaphor indicates that rather than the ceramic being the matrix that holds gold, it is the other way around. This is perfectly in line with Magic Gold being an MMC of course. Needless to say, Magic Gold is harder and more resistant to scratches than traditional gold alloys, while still maintaining the luxurious appearance and properties of gold. How tough is it, exactly? Well, apparently only diamond tools can make a dent in Magic Gold.

To machine Magic Gold, CNC machines equipped with ultrasonic cutters and diamond-tipped tools had to be specially ordered from Germany. Our last update on Magic Gold noted that 28 bezels in Magic Gold took three weeks to machine and that only between 30-40 complete cases could be produced monthly. This is unlikely to have changed as Magic Gold remains truly rare in the Hublot assortment. It is no small thing that this innovation remains in play, and it has had more than 10 years now of testing Magic Gold in the wild. No solution is perfect, and Magic Gold may yet receive an update in the years to come.

Sedna Gold

Honey Gold

IWC Portugieser Perpetual Calendar; Opposite: IWC Portugieser Hand- Wound Tourbillon Day & Night

Armour Gold

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Patek Philippe Cubitus Proves It's Hip to be Square

Patek Philippe has launched its first new collection of watches in 25 years with the Cubitus, which is also the Geneva watchmaker’s first square watch to enter the permanent collection. There are three new Patek Philippe Cubitus references for now, two time-only with date models (Ref. 5821/1A-001 and 5821/1AR-001) and one very impressive grand date watch with day of the week and moon phase indications (Ref. 5822P-001).

To dig into this a bit for those for whom the naming terms are arcane, Ref. 5821/1A is cased in steel, with a matching bracelet while Ref. 5821/1AR combines steel and rose gold, again with a bracelet that matches. In terms of movements, which is at the heart of any conversation about Patek Philippe watches, the simple models use existing calibres (26-330 S C) while the complicated model introduces a new one (240 PS CI J LU).

Real news is harder to find in watchmaking than evidence of water on Mars but this reveal by Patek Philippe certainly qualifies. Yes, it is that significant. We will have much more to say about Ref. 5822P but first, we must discuss the character of the collection, which means the look and feel. You will not be alone in thinking that the Cubitus looks like some kind of long lost Nautilus relative and Patek Philippe does reference the sports elegance concept, which is closely related to that legendary collection. Patek Philippe President Thierry Stern notes that what we see as Nautilus references are really key elements of the brand his family has led for three generations. He also noted that a true square watch was always in his mind.

"(Two reasons why the square shape is important), first because I never had it in (the brand’s permanent) collection, and I always enjoy seeing some of the square watches (from other brands),” said Stern. "And secondly, because I thought it would be good to surprise people with it. It's a personal challenge for me also to say, well, nobody expected me to go there!"

As for the name, apparently, Cubitus just popped into Stern’s mind before anything else. At the press briefing for the launch, it was clear that many options were considered in the four years or so that the collection was in development. The use of the existing calibres, including the base 240 calibre, does indicate that the brand was flexible in its approach.

Those familiar with the Nautilus will note that the Cubitus looks to be a sort of second coming in particular for the now-discontinued Ref. 5711A. If this occurred to you, consider that there are no significant models in sports elegance from any brand that are square. Not to make comparisons but since Stern brought it up, even icons such as the Cartier Santos or Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso are either not square or not sports elegance.

In short, this is new territory for Patek Philippe, even if it appears to be finding water in the Sahara rather than off-world. On that note, we do not expect the heat of Ref. 5711 transferring to Ref. 5821, although Stern anticipates that new collection will be oversubscribed, just as the Nautilus and Aquanaut references are. On that somewhat gnarly subject of scarcity, Stern confirms that production will not be scaling up; for reference, current production levels are approximately 72,000 pieces annually and we had it last at 70,000 last year.

Finally, we will leave off with the feel of the watches, which we were privileged to experience at the launch in Munich. The brand promised that the feel of the piece would drive off any doubts we might have. The proof is in the wearing, especially since all three watches are 45mm. Of course, this is a proper square and the integrated lugs mean that the size is actually comfortable. For the versions with bracelets, the Nautilus impression will be unmistakeable, right down to the pins and the alternating finishings (which are also mirrored on the case, just like the Nautilus).

In this example, the images do tell the story, although we are curious to try a Nautilus on for comparison. Sadly, while such comparisons are useful, they will be difficult to arrange, given the availability issues. For now though, those of you who recall the Ref. 5711 fondly and missed it will find plenty to like about the Cubitus. Only time will tell if the Ref. 5821 will merit the same desirability. As for the technically compelling Ref. 5822, we will save that for another more detailed post because it deserves its own space.

And, to really finish, prices have been updated on the Patek Philippe website and the new watches shape up as follows: Ref. 5822P-001 – SGD 128,000; Ref. 5821/1A-001 – SGD 59,700; Ref. 5821/1AR-001 – SDG 88,700.

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