Horological Meandering

Armin Strom Tourbillon - First Presentation in Interlaken

 

Armin Strom Tourbillon - First Presentation in Interlaken

Armin Strom is a young watch manufacturer in Biel Switzerland.  Although founded only 6 years ago they are already presenting their new tourbillon collection with in-house movement.  As with most of their other models the tourbillons are declined in four versions, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, themes allowing interesting variations in casing, dials and decoration.   This movement, as well as the other Armin Strom in-house movements, was designed by Claude Greisler, Armin Strom's technical director.  It is a manual wind, dual barrel movement with 10 day power reserve.  The tourbillon is visible at 9 o'clock on the dial, as well as the winding mechanism.

Celebrating the unveiling of their tourbillon Armin Strom is making a four stop tour around the world, each stop also themed to an Element.  The first stop of the presentation tour of their new tourbillon collection was yesterday in Interlaken themed to Earth. The tour will continue in Dubai - Fire, Singapore - Air and Los Angeles - Water. 

Here in Interlaken we are thinking of Earth – deep in the earth - and the unveiling will take place in the aging cellar of a brewery and distillery making Swiss Single Malt Whiskey.  From our rendez-vous point we went by bus to the brewery and took the long descent by elevator to the whiskey aging cellar.

There we were greeted by Armin Strom CEO Serge Michel and technical director Claude Greisler.  After a short speech by Mr. Michel describing the history of the brand Mr. Greisler continued.  Armin Strom sees themselves as a movement maker, placing the movements and their decoration in the foreground through openwork dials.  In this they continue in the tradition of their namesake watchmaker, Mr. Armin Strom, a master of watch skeletonising.  And as a platform to see the movement a tourbillon can't be out done.

Mr Greisler then begins the unveiling…

with a short description of the particularities of each of the watches.

The interest was great.

Earth - Stainless steel black PVD case, black dial with ceramic inserts.

Air – Titanium case, white dial

Water – 18ct white gold case, white dial, plate and bridges set with 44 diamonds, 76 light blue and 159 dark blue sapphires.

Fire – 18ct rose gold case, Black dial, plate and bridges hand engraved.

These watches form a special series of 4 of the tourbillons that are specially decorated and will be sold to collectors as a 4 piece set.  The introduction of the standard tourbillon models will be at BaselWorld 2013.

Note the dial side visible ratchet wheels on this two barrel movement.

On the way out: “For Friends”
The evening continued among the guests with a dinner also themed Earth.  Truffles and other kinds of root vegetables, etc., etc. AndrewD will be posting more in the near future.

If you have a chance to be among those taking part in one of the events in Dubai, Singapore or LA be sure not to miss it.  I think you won't be disappointed in the watchmaking.

Don


This message has been edited by DonCorson on 2012-10-26 13:26:55 This message has been edited by MTF on 2012-10-27 20:13:18 This message has been edited by AndrewD on 2012-11-03 14:15:54