Our Tourbillon 2 is a direct follow-up to the original Tourbillon 1, although the Lensman series tourbillons came before with the Autark tourbillon now available for preorder as well. The Tourbillon 2 separates itself with simplicity and refinement, featuring a stainless steel or 18k gold case and solid white Grand feu enamel dial or blue textured dial inspired by an ancient Irish illuminated manuscript. We’re now introducing a third and very rare meteorite dial that’ll bring even more exclusivity and no two dials will be exactly alike. We’ve used meteorite before with the K1 Solar Wind dials (33mm and 42mm options) and are excited to again offer these special metallic patterns that are only formed in space.
Extraterrestrial Metal
The use of meteorite metal, which is not native to earth as it literally falls from space, goes back thousands of years and examples have been found from ancient Egypt. Royalty would wear meteorite jewelry and an iron dagger from meteorite was even found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun. This was during the Bronze Age when copper and gold dominated Egyptian metallurgy. Bronze is an alloy of copper and about 12% tin (and potentially some other metals). Unlike iron artifacts from terrestrial sources that contain a maximum of 4% nickel, meteorite iron has up to 35% nickel content like Tutankhamun’s dagger.
About 500 meteorites hit earth every year, but less than 10 are actually found. This makes them exceptionally rare and the meteorite dials in our Solar Wind collection are valued at many times that of gold. Meteorite is simply among the most sought after and valuable material for watch dials, making it perfect for our latest Tourbillon 2. Space rocks found on earth can date back over 4 billion years and contain a unique Widmanstätten pattern when sliced that occurs naturally over millions of years as molten rock cools in space. Every slice for a watch dial is also unique like snowflakes and fingerprints.
The meteorite used for the Tourbillon 2 was found in Sweden and then cut and finished into a dial in Switzerland. Unlike others who use a veneer of Meteorite over a brass blank, our dial is a 0.8mm thick slice of Meteorite, allowing the full beauty of the Widmanstätten pattern to shine. The origin of collected meteorites is irrelevant as their landing sites are pure chance, but it’s nice that our sample was found relatively close to home in Europe.
Unique and Exclusive
Meteorite dials were first used by Rolex in the Daytona and Day-Date and remain very rare in watches today. Not only is meteorite rare itself, but slicing and finishing each dial takes time and a lot of skill. The unique, naturally forming pattern becomes more visually evident after an acid wash and hours of polishing and as mentioned, each dial will slightly vary with its own unique pattern. Unlike terrestrial metals and stones, these patterns are impossible to recreate and are only naturally formed within these space rocks.
Meteorite itself can be difficult to work with as it’s often brittle and dials can break during production. This can be compared with the difficulty of producing Grand Feu enamel dials like the ones we have for the Tourbillon 2, but those at least have an earthly origin and aren’t such a finite resource. Most meteorite dials are placed on a base dial for stability, although some are entirely meteorite like our Solar Wind dials. All are magnetic with such high iron content, so rhodium plating is used to counter that for watchmaking.
Tourbillon 2 Case and Movement
Our 41mm Tourbillon 2 case comes in either 904L stainless steel or 18k gold (white or yellow), and the dial features a simple time-only aesthetic with a power-reserve indicator at 2 o’clock. A blued screw on one of the tourbillon arms acts as a seconds hand as the tourbillon cage rotates once every 60 seconds. The meteorite dial is again in good company with the aforementioned white Grand Feu enamel and textured blue Livre de Durrow dials and adds another upscale option for this exceptional piece.
The watch is powered by our second generation, in-house, hand-wound K-TOU tourbillon caliber that features a lightweight titanium flying tourbillon and silicon escapement and hairspring. The power reserve is 120+ hours (a full 5 days) via a single barrel, which is a testament to the efficiency of our design. The titanium tourbillon cage is only 0.29 grams, making it one of the lightest in the world and a true marvel of engineering.
As with all our watches, we’re breaking the value barrier with unprecedented prices. The Tourbillon 2 has a starting price of just CHF 10,990 for the Stainless Steel with blue dial model.
Pricing for the new Meteorite dial model starts at CHF 14,980 and sales begin on Tuesday, June 18th at 14:00 CET. However, from June 18th to July 2nd, there will be a special preorder price starting at CHF 13,980 for the Meteorite model, saving CHF 1,000 from the retail price.
For more information and to place an order, please visit the Tourbillon 2 section of our website.
What do you think of our latest meteorite dial for the Tourbillon 2? Would you choose this over the Grand Feu enamel or blue Livre de Durrow? Also, have you seen or bought one of our Solar Wind pieces with a meteorite dial? Sound off in the comments!
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Erik Slaven
Would love to have some meteorite dial for Autark Tourbillon. @Tzuyu Huang pretty please :)