Despite taking on what was deemed an impossible feat our engineers have had a little fun behind the scenes. Bringing a tourbillon from the drawing board to production in 8 months has to be one for the record books.
Possibly there are others that have done this, but our knowledge of the industry and our team comprising of individuals from the Quartz crises to present day tell us Tourbillon 1 was a first of its kind. On top of this Tourbillon 1 not only went into production in 8 months it also reached chronometer level accuracy.
One of the available upgrades we offer is COSC chronometer certification. COSC is a 3rd party testing facility that measures over 1.4 million mechanical watches and instruments a year. COSC certification is a 15 day process where watches are fully wound every 24 hours and monitored in various positions and temperatures to gain an average of a watches performance. Those that pass receive an official printed certificate with details of the watches performance in each of the measured positions. Given that Tourbillon 1 is the most accessible Swiss Made tourbillon currently in the world there was not a lot of margin for us to play with so we could not include chronometer certification in the base price, but rather than not offer chronometer certification we made it an upgradable option.
For many who have followed the development journey of Tourbillon 1 and ordered the non-COSC version you would have been informed that we adjust all movements to within COSC level accuracy. We have very precise machines that enable us to run a COSC protocol in our lab. This means that by not ordering COSC the watch still performs just as well albeit without the beautiful official certificate appointed by COSC.
Our engineers are fanatics about performance and look for ways to test themselves even if they have already gone above and beyond. A few months back they thought it would be fun to randomly select three non-COSC movements that had recently been assembled and send them in anyway for COSC certification along with a batch of COSC ordered movements.
The movements selected came back and passed COSC without a hitch. Later the movements would be cased and shipped out to their new homes. This means that we now have three COSC certificates belonging to three different customers that until now have had no clue that their watch actually went to COSC for certification. Congratulations to case number 009, 030 and 055 who will be receiving their COSC certificates via post in the coming weeks.
For those that purchased COSC, don't worry our engineers haven't forgotten about you. They drew numbers out of a hat and those three numbers will receive some Horage goodies equal to the value of the COSC upgrade. Congratulations to case number 006, 081 and 069.
Thank you for playing in the Horage COSC performance games.
Until next time...
Landon Stirling
My beautiful Tourbillion is admired every day and living happily in Hobart Australia 42 degrees south. Thank you Horage
Well done to the unsuspecting winners! Remember we’re all winners here. I’ve just noticed mine squeezed 130 hours on the last wind as I’d left it alone since last week… pretty impressive. Of course it was stuttering a bit on the last leg of its marathon run, so drifted off a bit on the time-keeping but still mesmerising to watch. And a little reminder too for those who go for the extra certification… you get “chronometer certified” stamped on the case-back which is a nice reminder that this is a class act of a timepiece. All Horage timepieces are produced and regulated to the same exacting standards, of course ;) Well done team Horage.
After 6 weeks that I have my Tourbillon # 007, I have to realize that it is a "boring" watch. Wind up twice a week and never correct the time ... I like this watch. Kind regards
Ronald