Tourbillon (Whirlwind)

The tourbillon is a technological achievement, and is very expensive to produce, due to the advanced watch making techniques and the time it takes to make one. The Tourbillon was invented in 1795 by A.L. Breguet, and was given its patent in 1801.

Breguet invented the tourbillon, in order to compensate for the positional errors of the balance wheel & spring within a watch. The tourbillon places the entire balance wheel and escapement in a rotating cage. The cage then revolves on its axis at a fixed rate (every minute), thereby averaging out the gravitational effects on the balance wheel in an upright position, & therefore improving its ‘rate’.

Essentially the toubillon, was designed to make watches more accurate, as watches were kept in ones pocket (hence pocket watches) & generally sat stationary. I.e. the pull of gravity on the movement diminished the watches accuracy; therefore the revolving cage counteracted the gravity & its negative effects.

Technically, this is not as important today, as the wristwatch sits on a wrist and the motion counteracts the effects of gravity. However, despite this and it’s cost, demand today is very high as they are very cool indeed to have in ones collection. The trend to own a tourbillon does not seem to be slowing, as more manufacturers are adding them to their collections.

A Swiss tourbillon starts at around £20K and go way up over the £100K mark. We have a hand made Chinese tourbillon at BWC, which starts at £7,200 from NakedWatch. This is a very cool and sophisticated watch.

http://www.bigwatchcompany.co.uk/NakedWatch-Tailored-Tourbillon.aspx

To me, the toubillon is “The Dogg” in the watch world, and I too, would someday love to own one.

Wristwatches: Brunner, G.L. (Konemann, 2006)
HrWatches, June 2007: Bump, D.L. (GMT Inc, 2007)
The History of Clocks & Watches: Bruton, E (Chartwell, 2004)