Wow Watch Wednesday: The Greubel Forsey Effect (Live From SIHH 2010)
Tourbillon 24 Secondes in platinum with gold dial – Image courtesy of Greubel Forsey
Perhaps the hottest ticket in town this year at SIHH 2010 is an interview with Stephen Forsey. The co-founder of Greubel Forsey is a busy man and its not hard to see why when you look at the mind blowing pieces his company has created. But early on Tuesday morning I was able to spend a short time with him to talk about the latest products and look back over the last few hectic years.
While it has been my pleasure to interview only a relatively small number of independent watchmakers, they appear to have a number of common traits and Stephen does certainly seem to fit the mould. Without exception they are driven individuals, which is not surprising when you think about the amount of work and dedication it takes to make and launch your own watch.
This drive is allied to a passion for doing what they do, which understandably to some may appear almost like an obsession, however, manufacturers such as this one cannot be dismissed merely as a business. It involves so much more than just that.
Built On A Solid Foundation
Stephen has an engineering background and following a stint at the Hackney School of Horology in the late 1980s, he started out with the modest ambition of creating a few clocks that people might buy to order and make him a little bit of money. But this was the 1980s: the industry was in crises and quartz movements heralded the prospect of the demise of the mechanical watch-making business, so like many graduate watchmakers he hunkered down in someone else’s company. For Stephen this was Asprey’s in London.
The 1990s saw the return of interest in the mechanical watch, and the layoffs of the 1980s had left the Swiss watch industry with a problem – a lack of talented watchmakers. These companies scored the globe looking for talent to fill their ateliers; when Stephen landed at Renaud et Papi there were 15 different nationalities working there, and watch making was no longer a preserve of the Swiss.
In retrospect the remarkable thing about the members of this group at Renaud et Papi was what they did next. At the end of the 1990s the group began to disperse; with a common purpose, Stephen Forsey and Robert Greubel decided their future lay in creating the watches they wanted to make together. They believed that contrary to the thoughts of some other makers, not everything had been done and that innovation should be their focus.
Tourbillon 24 Secondes in platinum with black dial – Image © Ian Skellern 2010
Talking Shop
Gruebel Forsey is attending SIHH for the first time thanks in part to a 20 per cent investment by Richemont, which has also enabled Greubel Forsey to expand its workforce to nearly 100 spread over Greubel Forsey and its sister company CompliTime.
Stephen was kind enough to spend some time showing me his latest watches and, as I said yesterday, the quality is stunning and photos don’t do them justice, no matter how good they are.
Our discussions turned to how this quality is achieved and by way of an example Stephen explained how all of the screws used in his watches are made in-house. This means that the screws are made by a dedicated artisan, who is able to ensure that they are completely clean, all swarf is removed and there are no chemical residues to spoil the blueing process.
If the company is willing to go to these lengths for the screws, just imagine what it will do for the rest of the watch.
The Final Word
With the company continuing to grow and some excellent people coming on board, it looks like Stephen will be able to step back a bit from the endless rounds of PR and focus on the development of new technologies.
In my humble I think we have a lot more to look forward to from Greubel Forsey over the coming years. Now isn’t that an exciting thought!
Tourbillon 24 Secondes in platinum with black dial – Image © Ian Skellern 2010
Spec Sheet:
And just to really get your motors running, here are the specifications of the amazing Tourbillon 24 Secondes shown above:
Platinum case with lateral window, available in either a black or gold dial
Tourbillon 24 Secondes
Mechanical hand-wound movement, Calibre GF 01
Tourbillon 24 Secondes, 24-second Tourbillon rotation indicator, seconds indicator and power-reserve indicator.
Patented Movement
• Complete movement: 280 parts
• Tourbillon cage: 88 parts
• Weight of the cage: 0.39 g
Number of jewels 36
Olive-domed jewels in gold chatons
Power reserve 72 hours
Barrels Rapid rotating twin barrels (1 Turn in 3.2 hours) one of which equipped with a slipping spring so as to avoid excess tension
Balance wheel Free sprung balance with white gold mean-time screws (10 mm diameter)
Frequency 21’600 vibrations/hour
Balance spring
• Phillips terminal curve
• Geneva-style stud
Main Plates Spotted and snailed palladium-finished nickel silver
Bridges
• Hand bevelled, frosted and spotted palladium-finished nickel silver “Greubel Forsey” gold nameplate,
relief-engraved gold plate with the number of the timepiece
• Steel black mirror-polished and beveled Tourbillon bridge
• Black PVD-coated titanium platform under the Tourbillon and mirror-polished backdrop Gearing
• Involute circle profile
• Tangential inclined gear with profiled teeth, on fixed wheel and escape wheel pinion Tourbillon cage
• Inclined at a 25° angle, 24-second rotation
• Cage pillars in Avional
• Titanium cage bridges
• Gold counterweight
Displays
• Hours and minutes
• Small second sector
• 72-hour power reserve on a sector
• 24-second Tourbillon rotation indicator at 8 o’clock
Case
• Platinum with asymmetrical convex sapphire crystal
• Transparent back with asymmetrical convex sapphire crystal
• Lateral window with shaped sapphire crystal
• Raised engraving of the name of the Invention on a hand-punched background
• Gold security screws
• Polished bezel and centre band with hand-finished straight graining
• Hand-engraved individual number
Case dimensions
• Diameter: 43.5 mm
• Thickness: 16.11 mm
Water resistance of the case 3 atm – 30 m – 100 ft
Crown Platinum with engraved and black lacquered GF logo
Dial
• Gold dials
• Gold appliques
• Gold display sectors
• Applied gold logo
Hands
• Hours and minutes with Superluminova, small seconds and power-reserve in gold
• 24-second double-tipped hand, black anodised aluminium
Strap Hand-sewn black, brown and dark blue, alligator leather with gold folding clasp, hand-embossed with the Greubel Forsey initials
Category: Wow Watch Wednesday
