Explaining Tourbillon Watches to Mr. Spock

pock wouldn't wear a tourbillon, or at least his paternal Vulcan genes would reject the practice. Viewed solely as a timekeeping refinement, a wristwatch tourbillon simply defies logic.

Abraham Louis Breguet conceived the tourbillon in the late eighteenth century to rotate a pocket watch escapement through 360 degrees. Breguet's intention was to equalize and thus, neutralize, the effect of gravity on the rate of the timekeeping “heartbeat” of the watch. However, the underlying logic collapses when the constantly shifting position of a wristwatch enters the equation.

Unlike pocket watches, which sit in the vertical position on a constant basis, wristwatches travel through a full range of unpredictable motion.

Now, pay attention, Mr. Spock, because here's the part that's going to blow your mind.

Despite the dubious horological value of the wristwatch tourbillon, the challenge inherent in its construction, its comparative rarity, and its mesmerizing motion continue to captivate the most discerning collectors. Long considered the pinnacle of the watchmaker's art, the tourbillon appeals exclusively to connoisseurs of complication, lovers of fine art, and romantics.

Virtually all tourbillon watches for sale on the contemporary market feature ample viewports through which the mechanism can be appreciated by collectors and their companions.

Tourbillons engage and intoxicate observers with a synchronized ballet that resembles celestial mechanics of the fictional planet Vulcan's rotation around the star 40 Eridani A.

While the timekeeping value of a revolving escapement wristwatch is unclear, the beauty of the mechanism stems from the number of parts — pallet stones, lever, balance wheel, tourbillon cage and carriage, hairspring, escapement wheel, and bridge — that move in concert within a rotating, self-propelled, self-regulating assembly only millimeters in diameter.

The tourbillon requires an uncommon degree of skill from watchmakers who design, construct, and service them. Such is the challenge met by contemporary star watchmakers like FP Journe and Thomas Prescher, who have constructed tourbillon watches as their practical final examinations when progressing from journeyman to master watchmaker.

So great is the difficulty and expense of constructing tourbillion movements that fewer than 1,000 are believed to have been built between 1860 and the beginning of Audemars Piguet's serialized production of the Tourbillon Automatique 1985. Even today, all models of tourbillon watches for sale represent a miniscule fraction of the volume of contemporary luxury watch production.

Logically, scarce supply and widespread demand render the tourbillon supremely valuable to today's collectors, and that's a point even Spock would concede.Bekijk meer kopie rolex en breitling skyland avenger replica