Jaeger-LeCoultre – Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie ith almost 1,500 parts, and 27 complications, when the Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie watch was released in 2009, it held the title of “world’s most complicated watch”. A series of timepieces have held this title over the years and, as time goes on, the world’s best watchmakers will claim to be new holders of the “world’s most complicated watch” title. Nevertheless, each piece that has worn this crown – no matter for how long – deserves a great deal of praise.
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$2,500,000
Jaeger-LeCoultre didn’t just unseat the previous “world’s most complicated watch” by adding one or two extra functions, but designed a completely novel mechanism that performed old tasks in some new ways. In a nutshell, the Hybris Mechanica is a musical watch with a perpetual calendar and a tourbillon, though it has peculiar inventions throughout. Jaeger-LeCoultre, when they began to design the Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie, discarded the standard manner of producing a minute repeater and sonnerie watch. These functions are designed, either automatically or on demand, to sound the time back to the wearer, using a series of musical chimes. An established mechanical design is employed by most watchmakers who create watches with these functions. Jaeger-LeCoultre intended producing the best minute repeater and sonnerie watch ever (in terms of both quality and complexity), so the focuses in the watch were on the quality of the chimes (to be loud and clear), and the duration of the chimes (to perfectly emulate the style of the Westminster Chimes in London’s Palace of Westminster). Jaeger-LeCoultre designed a new controlling system for the musical functions, dubbed by watchmakers as the “Infernal Tower” due to its devilishly complex construction. It comprises a three-tiered stack of gears, which when properly made, improves the reliability and precision of the minute repeater and sonnerie. The traditional metal gongs, where small hammers strike in the movement to produce the chimes, are absent from this watch. The Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie includes a Jaeger-LeCoultre invention they call a “crystal gong”. It attaches unique metallic gong structures to the sapphire crystal on the watch, which when matched to the 18k white gold case, yield an extremely bold and clear sound. Purchasing a Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie is an experience that one is unlikely to forget. Available by direct order from Jaeger-LeCoultre, the watch comes with two other watches, as well as a very special box. In addition to the Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie piece, the set also comes with a Jaeger-leCoultre skeletonised Gyrotourbillon and a Reverso Grande Complication à Triptyque. On their own, each of these pieces is an incredibly important watch. The trio of luxury watches comes in a safe. A 1200 kg JaegerLeCoultre-branded safe, which incorporates a watch winder cabinet and a special sound system, so that, when it is in storage, the Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie can be heard striking from outside the safe.
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