A US$150,000 Blancpain watch, and two other eye-wateringly expensive timepieces
Three heavy hitters that stood out at the Hong Kong Watch & Clock Fair
I’m a big fan of boxing. The “sweet science” has had bad press in recent times and, let’s be honest, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and all that mixed-martial-arts jazz is stealing its thunder, but boxing still has its charms and one of my favourite things about it, aside from all the punching of course, is the nicknames. The greatest belong to Alexis “The Explosive Thin Man” Argüello (he was thin, you see) and Rendall “The Boxing Binman” Munroe (his day job, natch). I, too, had a nickname growing up. I was known as Abid “Snake Hips” Rahman. Not in the ring, mind, rather on the football pitch due to my penchant for ball-hogging and trying fancy-dan tricks.
These days I have the turning circle of a bus, my sporting career is well and truly over, but I feel I need another nickname more in line with writing this column. Thus, henceforth I shall be known as The Chronomaster.
Right, on to the watches! This week, The Chronomaster (that’s me, remember?) has been looking over the watches that were shown at the World Brand Piazza exhibition, part of the Hong Kong Watch & Clock fair, which closes on September 8. The exhibition focuses on the highest of high horology, with price tags that might only attract the 1 per cent but if you’re a watch nerd you’ll certainly appreciate the beauty, engineering and craft. My first pick is Blancpain’s breathtakingly beautiful Villeret Tourbillon Volant Heure Sautante Minute Rétrograde, which is a lot of French words that mean “amazing.”
The Villeret collection is Blancpain’s most traditional and what puts the brand among the elite of Swiss watchmaking, and it’s easy to see why. This watch has classic styling but also minimalist modern elements, it’s simple but also incredibly complex. But what you’re probably thinking is how do you tell the time? Well, all those French words in the name mean this is a jumping-hours and retrograde-minutes watch, so the numeral indicator on the dial shows the hours that “jump” when they change and the 0-to-60 subdial is the minute indicator, which resets itself after 60 minutes.
To add to the complexity, Blancpain has installed a flying tourbillon. The case is sized 42mm and made of red gold. Inside is a 260MR movement with a stellar 144 hours of power reserve (that’s six days). The watch is priced at a princely HK$1.2 million (US$153,000).