Is 2024 the year of all records in the watchmaking industry? A few days after the announcement of the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, the thinnest watch in the world (1.70 mm thick), it is Vacheron Constantin’s turn to beat its own record for the “thinnest” watch complex in the world. It required eleven years of research and development and includes no less than… 63 complications.
Vacheron Constantin beats its own record!
The house with the Maltese Cross was already known since 2015 for holding this record with its Reference 57260 watch which had 57 complications. Nine years later, replica Vacheron Constantin beat its own record with a new pocket watch named Les Cabinotiers – The Berkley Grand Complication.
While its predecessor was equipped with a Hebrew perpetual calendar, the Berkley Grande Complication incorporates the world’s first Chinese perpetual calendar. All for a total of 63 watch complications and 2,877 pieces.
Berkley Grande Complication: a double-sided watch
The most complex new replica watches in the world required 11 years of design, including a year entirely devoted to its assembly, and its particularity is therefore to offer a traditional Chinese perpetual calendar. “Given the particularities of its complex and irregular cycle, the mechanical programming of the manufacture caliber 3752 until the year 2200 is a matter of watchmaking genius,” specifies Vacheron Constantin by way of introduction of this piece at the Watches & Wonders 2024 show.
But that’s not all. It is also and above all a double-sided pocket watch that can be described as “astronomical”. There are indeed many so-called noble watchmaking complications, whether astronomical and chiming functions, or useful complications in terms of chronometry, alarms and time zones, all with a concern for great precision.
It is difficult to cite here (*) each of the 63 complications but we can still list a few: a Gregorian perpetual calendar, a sky map, the phases and precise age of the moon, the rising times and sunset… Everything is managed by a manufacture caliber which has 2,877 parts including around thirty hands, 245 jewels and nine discs.
A unique manufacture caliber
It is a caliber 3752 equipped with a Grande Sonnerie mechanism with Westminster chime. The carillon takes up the melody of the bells of Big Ben – on the Parliament Tower in London – with 5 gongs and 5 hammers, supplemented by an alarm. The caliber offers 60 hours of power reserve, a mechanical mechanism with manual winding and a frequency of 2.5 Hz (18,000 vibrations/hour).
Be careful though, this one-of-a-kind watch from Vacheron Constantin is also in terms of dimensions: it weighs 960 grams, its 18-carat white gold case has a diameter of 98 mm and its thickness is 50.55 mm.
