Originally Posted by
accountinquestion
Originally Posted by
MDawg
Tourbillon. Awesome.
The reality is that the issue with wrist watches being able to run accurately at different angles was solved long ago, so tourbillons today are more about appreciating the craftsmanship.
Yea, that and I guess with pocket watches they tended to always sit at the same angle relative to gravity. I bought it but haven't went down the rabbithole of trying to understand how it works. Successful smart people like to appreciate fine things because there just isn't that much else to do. Some of us purchase expensive watches while some of us purchase expensive card shufflers to delve into.
Yes exactly pocket watches were designed to run accurately when hung at that same angle. People were supposed to keep them at that same angle including when placed inside a watch pocket.
The early wrist watches were simply smaller pocket watches and couldn't handle the constant movement into different angles, until the tourbillon came along to compensate for that movement, and keep them accurate at all angles.
But today, as I mentioned, mechanical wrist watches are accurate with or without the tourbillon, so it is just about buying something that represents up to a year of watchmaking just to put it together.
Those are two of my tourbillons, on the left a Breguet in platinum, on the right a Cartier in rose gold.
Once you get to a tourbillon, I suppose the next step up would be a minute repeater. Perpetual calendars are also coveted, but less expensive than tourbillons.
For the most part a tourbillon watch has only that "complication" on it, although Blancpain and others like Roger Dubois have combined it with other features. I have a Franck Muller that has both a tourbillon and a chronograph. Minute repeaters are sometimes combined with a perpetual calendar, a moonphase, a chronograph, and even other complications.
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