PeterCDE
10167
The rich man?s perfume
G'day,
a while ago, while discussing whether or not high-end watches "make sense", this statement came up:
"A tourbillon is the rich man?s perfume".
Now whether or not one is willing to venture into Haute Horlogerie and pay a certain sum for particularly a tourbillon isn?t my point now. And it?s not about whether or not the high costs can be justified ("prices" and "values" exceed the forum guidelines).
My point is rather the variety of them around.
A few years/decade ago, there have been very few; it is often said that until late 1980?s, there have been a handful (less than 20) of watchmakers in Switzerland who are able to built and regulate a tourbillon.
Today there are much more than 100 brands offering them, although there are still very very few brands who do their own tourbillon movement.
And today the range of swiss watches with tourbillon watches covers pretty much the range between 2.000 and 1.000.000 Euro; that?s pretty wide and certainly different from the status quo only a few years ago.
Lately i?ve come across this one:
picture by uhr-kraft.de
priced at 2.199 Euro
The price tag itself probably puts things in perspective; a tourbillon seems to be no longer a "rich man?s perfume".
At least the wild variety of brands and models doesn?t allow for easy overview and a tourbillon most probably is not as unusual as it was a decade ago.
Girard-Perregaux
Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, sceleton
GP added some complications and variants to the Haute Horlogerie line over the past years, such as the Perpetual Calendars with and without chronographs up to the new WW.TC tourbillon. Now there?s a range of tourbillon watches greater than ever (the same goes for wait lists and back orders).
Given there?s a greater variety of possible choices these days, with a range of very different price tags, styles and movements, where does all this leave our cherished brand?
Good for GP to be one of few to make their own tourbillons?
Bad for GP, because details such as movement provenance are outweighed by style/look/branding?
And for the GP tourbillons:
Now that the manual-wind three-hands tourbillons are discontinued, should the brand focus on innovative looks or fashion? Or complications (which require modules for the existing movements)? Make a completely new one, with more/less bridges, a different look (than both the Three Bridges and the Single Bridge movements) or different functions?
Or focus on the traditional look and function?
I?d like to keep this focussed on GP and GP timepieces; while i do know it?s somewhat related to other offerings on the market and the question whether or not the tourbillon itself did loose some of it?s uniqueness and special attraction for being a most rare high complication, please keep in mind this is a dedicated GP Forum.
Nonetheless, i?m curious to hear your opinions!
Greeting from germany,
Peter
