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The Master Eight Days Perpetual SQ is a perpetual - calender watch with 8 days power reserve. The watch face carries an indication of hte hours and minutes, the perpetual calender (date, day of the week, month and year), the moon phases, the day/night display and power reserve. This watch is issued exclusively in platinum fitted with grey alligator leather strap with double folding clasp in 18-carat gold.

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This watch can be personalized according to customers’ wishes and as been created from the combination of the most advanced technology (transparency of the dials) and the most secret (security printing) as well as best in the watchmaking know how. Upto 400 combinations are possible.

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Take the Urwerk 103 and the Opus V and mix them up with a little Felix Baumgartner magic and you have the latest from Urwerk, the 201 Hammerhead. This amazing watch features the classic Urwerk hour satellites but adds in telescoping minute hands that adjust their length as they follow the minutes and then retract. The watch has a five-day power reserve indicator and a day/night indicator. On the back of the watch there is an oil change indicator and the world’s first horological odometer which keeps track of the total time of use for over a 100 years. I haven’t heard any news on official prize but Gizmodo UK is saying it is around $50,000. True Urwerk junkies will appreciate this slow motion deluxe video tour and the pics here.

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This timepiece takes the prize for integrating real old technology: a tourbillon escapement. Invented in 1795, this type of escapement actually rotates inside its frame and was designed to counteract lop-sided gravity effects caused by the vertical position gentlemen’s pocket watches usually sat in. Concord’s C1 mechanical watch has this movement mounted outside the case and dial, and presumably it adds to time accuracy. As well as making the watch look damn fine. Will it go on sale? We don’t know, but we suspect a massive price.

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A tourbillon (”whirlwind“)is a type of mechanical clock or watch escapement invented in 1795 by Abraham-Louis Breguet that is designed to counter the effects of gravity and other perturbing forces that can affect the accuracy of a timepiece. This is accomplished by mounting the escapement in a rotating frame, so that the effect of gravity cancels out when the escapement is rotated 180°. The effects of gravity were particularly problematic when pocketwatches were carried in the same pocketed position for most of the day. In a tourbillon, the entire escapement assembly rotates, including balance wheel, escapement wheel, and pallet fork. The rate of rotation varies per design but has generally become standardized at one rotation per minute.

The tourbillon is considered to be one of the most challenging of watch mechanisms to make(although technically not a complication itself) and is valued for its engineering and design principles. In modern watch designs, a tourbillon is not required to produce a highly accurate timepiece. Nevertheless, the tourbillon is one of the most valued features of collectors’ watches and premium timepieces. High-quality tourbillon wristwatches, made in Switzerland are very expensive, typically retailing for tens of thousands of euros.

Modern implementations typically allow the tourbillon to be seen through a window in the watch face. In addition to enhancing the charm of the piece, the tourbillon acts as a second hand as it rotates once per minute. (There are many “Tourbillon” fake/replicas of premium brand watches that emulate this feature with the oscillating balance wheel visible through the watch dial. However, these are usually conventional lever escapements, not tourbillons.)

In the late 20th century, the first research into multi-axis tourbillon movements was done by British clockmakers Anthony Randall and Richard Good, eventually producing two- and three-axis tourbillon movements.

Paris evokes romance, intrigue, and a sense of adventure. Whether you are talking about the French City or Paris Hilton, you know what you’re getting when you buy a Paris Hilton Limited Edition watch. The star attractions to these watches are the beautiful diamonds in different colors, depending on the model you get. They can evoke a sense of drama to any beautiful event you happen to be headed for on the international scene. Everyone associates Paris with a city of magic and fine tastes, and the Paris Hilton watch exudes the same mystique.

Abazias offers a very romantic “Pink is Love” Paris Hilton Limited Edition watch. It features 6.07 carats of pink diamonds with 3.03 carats of white diamonds in total. The intriguing design offers four different Swiss quartz movements and a gold pave dial. You can set the watch to four different time zones in case you are jetting to Paris from New York. Paris Hilton is known for her sense of style and taste and these watches are no different. Each is uniquely trendy and distinctly “hot.” The numbers of stones on the “Pink is Love” model total 1026 stones.

Despite the jet setter style, the watch is also very functional. It’s waterproof and comes with a sturdy alligator strap. The designers don’t give up functionality just because of style. The cost of the watch really sets it apart from the common designer brands. At a quarter of a million dollars, this watch is about making a statement of opulence and high drama, just like its namesake. So, if you want something truly special to remember a loved one, or just to treat yourself to a bit of the diva glamour, the Paris Hilton Limited Edition line could be just the type of watch to keep you on time and in the public eye.

Caliber

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A term, similar to type or model, that refers to different watch movements. Pictured here if Heuer’s Caliber 11, the legendary automatic chronograph caliber from 1969. This movement was a coproduction jointly researched and developed for four years by Heuer Leonidas, Breitling, and Hamilton Buren. Each company gave the movement a different name after serial production began.

When the Rolf Schnyder purchased the company Ulysse Nardin in 1983, the tide had taken most everything with it except a sonorous name. The brand was founded in 1946 by the watchmaker of the same name, a man who had above all garnered some renown with the production of marine chronometers. There was a large demand for the big clocks in the wooden boxes in seafaring countries back than as a ship’s entire navigation was dependent upon precision timepieces on board. When the quartz watch surpassed everything known until then in precision at the end of the 1960s, there was suddenly no more demand for the noble chronometers. The company wasn’t able keep its head above water with the production of just pocket and wrist watches, and in the 1970s the brand went under Rolf Schnyder did not have a clue to watchmaking when he embarked upon the adventure of Ulysse Nardin. Despite this the man with the unconventional ideas led the washed-up company to new heights. Along with the charisma and leadership skills of the boss, who lives outside of Switzerland a good part of the year and directs the company from abroad, there is another man who has considerably contributed to the success of the brand. Eighteen years ago, Schnyder found in Ludwig Oechslin the idea collaborator to aid in fishing the company out of the water. Oechslin is not only an excellent watchmaker, but he is also an astronomer and an academic historian. His specialty is the astronomic time piece, as he is learned not only in the actual cosmos in which we exist as well. He excited the horological world with his astronomic clock for Turler in Zurich. He began his cooperation with Ulysse Nardin by creating the memorable Trilogy of Time : Tellurium Johannes Kepler, Astrolabium Galileo Galilei, and Planetorium Copernicus, three extraordinary wristwatches that display the positions of the heavenly bodies on the firmament.

Tellurium Johannes Kepler

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A revolutionary timepiece that rotates the Earth in its true geographical shape seen from above the North Pole.

A flexible spring bends from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn to reveal the part of the Earth lit by the Sun and to indicate the time and place of sunrise and sunset. The moon rotates around the Earth.

The dragon hand indicates the eclipses of the sun and the moon. The perpetual calendar completes one turn each year.

SPECIFICATIONS

Case Diameter
43 mm

Case
Platinum Case

Dial
Genuine enamel cloisonné dial

Movement
UN-87

Power-reserve
Approx. 42 hours

Winding
Automatic Winding

Crystal
Sapphire crystals

Strap
Leather strap

Current Price : US$ 99,000

Astrolabium Galileo Galilei

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The Astrolabe was developed by ancient astronomers to measure the altitude and direction of celestial bodies over the horizon, calculate the seasons, the movements of the zodiac and to foretell eclipses. This highly complex instrument indicates the position of the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky at any given hour as seen from Earth.
It also indicates sunrise and sunset, dawn and dusk, moonphases, moonrise and moonset, eclipses of sun and moon, the month and the day of the week.

SPECIFICATIONS

Case Diameter
40 mm

Case
18ct Yellow Gold

Dial
Available with a dial (planisphere) for any latitude required

Movement
UN-97

Power-reserve
Approx. 42 hours

Winding
Automatic Winding

Crystal
Sapphire crystals

Strap
Leather strap

Current Price : US$ 95,000

Planetorium Copernicus

One single movement of mechanical excellency plus a stroke of pure genius combine Ptolemy’s geocentric universe with the Earth at its center, and Copernicus’ heliocentric universe with the Sun at its centre. This allows the reading of the astronomical positions of the planets in relation to the Sun and the Earth. The moon rotates around the Earth.

A perpetual calendar indicating the months and the sign of the zodiac completes one turn in 365.24 days at the exterior.

SPECIFICATIONS

Case Diameter
40 mm

Case
18ct Yellow Gold

Dial
Blue & Gold Dial

Movement
UN-80

Power-reserve
Approx. 42 hours

Winding
Automatic Winding

Crystal
Sapphire crystals

Strap
Leather strap

Current Price : US$ 72,000

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“World time” gentleman’s wristwatch indicating the name of 33 cities, regions or countries of the world with square button chronograph and pulsometer scale – 1940

Sold on October 2, 1940 to the Dr. P. Schimdt, Geneva (Switzerland)

Current Price : US$ 790,000