Chopard
The World’s Thinnest Automatic COSC & Geneva Seal Stop-Seconds Tourbillon
Why Should You Care?
The watch you’re looking at from Chopard L.U.C is, in my opinion, one of the most significant tourbillons ever created in the history of watchmaking. Why, you ask? Let’s list out the reasons. First, Chopard is one of only two brands that have made a Geneva Seal and COSC-certified tourbillon; the other is Patek Philippe .
Second, the watch is the only automatic flying tourbillon that is Geneva Seal and COSC certified, period. Third, it is one of only six tourbillons in existence from major watchmakers that feature a stop-seconds function. Fourth, it has the world’s smallest and thinnest stop-seconds tourbillon mechanism, which has, in turn, allowed Chopard to create a truly elegant and infinitely wearable timepiece at 36.5mm in diameter and a mere 8.2mm in thickness. Now, let’s go through each of these reasons in more depth.
Why Is COSC Certification Important for a Tourbillon?
This goes to the roots of the tourbillon’s raison d’être, which is to be a chronometric device. Back in the 18th century, gentlemen of substance and style wore pocket watches in their waistcoats. In the evening, they would often hang these pocket watches on small nightstands, meaning that these timepieces spent the majority of their time in the vertical position.
But this caused a problem. It was discovered that gravity had an erosive effect on timekeeping because the hairspring powering the oscillations of the balance wheel would not breathe concentrically. Further, an uneven friction was placed on crucial pivots such as the balance staff and that belonging to the escape wheel.
It was the genius Abraham-Louis Breguet who came up with the solution. He placed all the regulating organs consisting of the balance wheel, the hairspring, the escape wheel and the lever inside of a cage which rotated once on its own axis every minute (initially this was slower), thereby averaging the errors caused by gravity. He named this extraordinary device the tourbillon or “whirlwind,” for obvious reasons.
In 1947, Omega made a series of 12 tourbillon wristwatch calibers for use in the famous chronometric trials. These movements designated caliber 30 I were never cased until 1987 when they were rediscovered in storage, then overhauled and placed in watches. The first commercially produced tourbillon in wristwatch format was created in 1986 when Audemars Piguet launched the exquisite, though technically flawed (the winding function wasn’t great), ultra-thin automatic wristwatch tourbillon designed by the incomparable Jacqueline Dimier.
Some brands even went so far to say, “We cannot send our tourbillons for COSC certification because they have no seconds hands.” Which is absolute rubbish because you can stick a seconds hand to any point on the cage that rotates precisely once every minute.
Patek Philippe remained alone in empirically proving the chronometric value of their tourbillons until Chopard L.U.C entered this realm with the Quattro Tourbillon, a tourbillon with a vibrational speed of 4Hz powered by four barrels and a power reserve of eight days, accompanied by the Geneva Seal and — drum roll please — yes, COSC certification.
Which is, of course, a typically polite statement from a true gentleman. However, I will go one step further to emphatically state that, to me, a tourbillon without COSC certification or the equivalent of one is a watch with a visually entertaining device but zero horological validity. This is why I have so much respect for Chopard L.U.C in that all of its watches but one (an ultra-thin watch with no seconds hand) has received both the Geneva Seal, as a testament to their refinement in finish, and COSC certification to validate their accuracy. Accordingly, the Chopard L.U.C 1860 Flying T, Special Revolution is a genuine COSC-certified chronometric masterpiece.
Why Are Stop-Seconds Tourbillons Superior to Other Tourbillons?
This follows the logic that if a tourbillon was created to be a chronometric device, then in order for it to be set accurately, it had to have a stop-seconds or hacking seconds function. Think about it this way. Back in the day when the SAS (Special Air Service) were using their 5517 MilSubs to coordinate clandestine attacks, they set their watches to the same time down to the second. Which was why it was important that their watches had a hacking function.
You couldn’t say to your commander, “Oh wait, hang on, sir, the seconds on my watch doesn’t hack, it keeps running. Can I be approximately synchronized with everyone else?” This would probably result in your being jettisoned from the cargo bay of the transport plane sans parachute. And you would deserve it, right?
So then, how is it that while there are hundreds of tourbillons in existence, there have only been six wristwatch tourbillons with a stop-seconds function? The answer is, they are difficult to make and a pain to set up perfectly. But once they have been set up, they are clearly superior to versions without stop seconds.
Even Breguet saw the technical merit in the creating of a stop-seconds tourbillon as he made at least one example of this watch during his lifetime. This was No. 1176, the Garde Temps Four-Minute Tourbillon, dated to 1809. The first wristwatch tourbillon with a stop-seconds function dates to 2008 and was the A. Lange & Sohne Cabaret Tourbillon. This watch was discontinued in 2013 but it has been revived this year in a stunning Handwerkskunst limited edition.
Lange’s innovation was to create a Y-shaped stop-lever to stop the balance wheel, even when one arm was potentially blocked by the pillar of the cage. This same solution was used for the 1815 Tourbillon, which ingeniously incorporates a heart-cam on the tourbillon pinion to make for a zero-reset seconds hand when the tourbillon is arrested.
But this is where Chopard L.U.C has again brought a game-changing level of innovation to the stop-seconds tourbillon. Because, here the brake function is not applied to the balance but instead to the cage, somewhat like that in the case of the Parallex Tourbillon. Further, because the cage of the tourbillon is exactly the same diameter as the tourbillon aperture on the dial, the brake function is hidden from view so that it is, in effect, a mysterious stop-seconds tourbillon.
OK, let’s explain how this tourbillon works. The first wheel, which is powered by the barrel engages the center wheel, which turns the cannon pinion that drives the minute and hour wheel. The center wheel turns the third wheel, which engages the pinion of the tourbillon cage. The cage drives the escape wheel around a fixed fourth wheel, which powers the lever which causes the balance to oscillate.
The rapidity with which the balance starts to oscillate again is based purely on the quality of torque coming from the mainspring and flowing through the gear wheels. And in this case, the L.U.C 1860 Flying T, Special Revolution wins again as it has the advantage of being powered by a pair of stacked twin barrels.
Ultimately, not only is this Chopard watch a remarkable feat of technical innovation, but it is also extraordinary in terms of how wearable it is. The IWC tourbillon watch with hacking function is 16.9mm in height. Compare this with the L.U.C 1860 Flying T, Special Revolution’s incredible 8.2mm in height. The fact that this watch is an automatic, micro-rotor driven, stop-seconds flying tourbillon with Geneva Seal and COSC certification makes it, to me, the most extraordinary timepiece in the tourbillon category hands down.