The renowned Swiss watchmaker Greubel Forsey will premiere at SIHH 2017 a brilliant timepiece that was apparently in the works for more than 11 years. Dubbed as the Greubel Forsey Grande Sonnerie, this epic piece is actually the brand’s first-ever chiming watch and a real timekeeping wonder.
You might already know that movements with chiming complications are the most difficult to develop from scratch – so it’s no wonder that it took over a decade and 935 different parts for Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey to get to the point of finishing up their first sonnerie piece. Designed to be worn and wrapped in lightweight titanium, the Greubel Forsey Grande Sonnerie packs all those 935 components into a superb 43.5 mm case.
One of only a handful chiming watches ever made to feature automatic winding, this precious timepiece features a hand-wound movement and even offers 72 hours of power reserve. That’s incredible, to say the least, considering that the grand sonnerie alone requires quite a lot of energy to chime every 15 minutes for the passing quarters.
According to Greubel Forsey, this extraordinary watch features eleven additional mechanisms, engineered into the movement to help protect the extremely complex and fragile chiming complication. As such, the Greubel Forsey Grande Sonnerie is priced at 1,150,000 Swiss francs – with only five to eight pieces to adorn some very lucky wrists each year.
