Mechanical masterpieces

[caracarnj]

Steel yourself for these high horology delights!

An industrial-looking, 44mm open-worked tourbillon watch is offered by Jaeger-LeCoultre, with views of ruthenium-treated bridges and mainplate. They flex their considerable production muscle to celebrate another collaboration with Aston Martin with this 300-piece edition.

The Amvox 3 tourbillon GMT comes embellished with rose gold touches front and back and is housed in a very special ceramic case - fashioned at over 2,000 degrees Celsius from exotic materials like zirconium and yttrium oxides.

Jaeger-LeCoultre also offers an especially large selection this year to celebrate their 175th anniversary. Housed in distinctive livery of rose gold and chocolate, their Master Collection 1833 shows off four of their signature watches: 575 pieces each of the Master Ultra-Thin and the Master Grand Tourbillon, and 175 pieces each of the Master Eight Days Perpetual Squellette and Master Minute Repeater.

Not satisfied to stop there, they commemorate the anniversary with a Memovox tribute to their Polaris Dive watch with audible underwater alarm from the Sixties, in a choice of platinum or stainless steel - paying tribute to the original 1965 and 1968 versions, 65 pieces and 768 pieces respectively. The latter, shown here, is distinguished by baton hands and trapeze-shaped hour markers, both distinctively luminescent.

FOR those with a soft spot for rose gold, we are delighted to report that Chopard's high horology arm LUC is presenting their ultra-handsome Steel Wings tourbillon in a 100-piece limited edition this year.

Patek Philippe kicked off proceedings in Basel this year by introducing their 5450 Advanced Research annual calendar in platinum, the third in their silicium series. This time around, the 5450 features an all-new Pulsomax escapement delivered in lubrication-free, temperature-resistant Silinvar. This is the revolutionary material first explained to our readers by Patek president Philippe Stern in BT's 2006 watch supplement.

This year's new Pulsomax escapement completes the picture, consisting of lever and escape wheel with new geometries - in addition to the Spiromax balance spring first presented in 2006. All three are made of silinvar, and available in a very limited 300 pieces.

Bulgari celebrates the 20th Anniversary of their trademark gents sports watch line called Diagono with an exciting line-up of new offerings in 2008.

If you like rose gold on brown croco, for example, take a look at this ruggedly handsome 42mm Phases de Lunes offering: day and date in the two arcs left and right, plus the phase of the moon in a third one above six o'clock. 350 pieces.

This year, sports watch favourite IWC celebrates their 140th anniversary with a re-issue of watches from their six flagship lines: Pilot, Portuguese, Ingenieur, Aquatimer, Da Vinci and Portofino. Christened the Vintage collection, 500 pieces of each will be offered in precious platinum, with numbered pieces up to 140 only available as six-piece sets.

We show off two of the six here - by most accounts the hot favourites for collectors here in Singapore and elsewhere. The 46mm Portofino moonphase (in homage to reference 5251) and the 44mm Portuguese (in homage to the first IWC pocket watch of 1939) both hand-wound. And here's the nice thing - the stainless steel pieces here are not limited edition watches. How considerate, thanks very much IWC!

Cheers!

[mysterio]

That last Bvlgari watch was the one Robert Downey Jr. used in Iron Man. cool.