"La Vie En Rose" a Rose Gold Themed Auction
7 lots presented by Ineichen.
Today we have the pleasure of presenting a few sweet lots that will be part of the next spring auction of Ineichen Zurich, an auction taking place on the 12th of March.
The seven pieces selected today are part of a pink gold thematic with approximately 40 watches included in this “La vie en rose” sale and we’ll have two Vacherons, two FP Journe with a very interesting feature regarding their dials, two Harry Winston and a very special Girard-Perregaux and we’ll start with this one.
This GP Reference 99350 is inspired by the famous ww.tc (for worldwide time control) launched during the era of Luigi Macaluso.
This piece was not part of a limited edition per se but was limited by production volumes and this particular model is number 10 of that series, a series started in 2005 and ended in 2010. It’s 43mm in width, 13.15mm in height and comes in a rose gold case, something I will not repeat for the next watches, as it’s the theme of the auction.
So when you have a first look on the dial side you actually see at a glance all of the earth’s time zones including a day-night indication ring.
Those three gold bridges at Girard-Perregaux are always in 18K rose gold because thanks to a special hardening trick with temperatures it is the hardest gold you can get.
Anyhow, movement is nicely hand finished as you can see and hold 75 hours of power reserve.
Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Traditionelle Perpetual Calendar Ref. 43172, a model produced between 2007 and 2021 coming in a round 39mm case, 8.82mm in height and as you can see it has been extensively openworked and since this timepiece has a traditional buckle and not a folding clasp, well you can very easily admire its movement and this skeletonization and engraving done on most structural components of the watch, mainplate, bridges and so forth and including the rotor.
Most modern QPs have leap year indicators, whereas this one features a 48-month subdial at 12 o’clock, something you would for instance find on some old pocket watches.
The movement is the caliber 1120 which shares the same base as caliber 2121 used by Audemars Piguet on its first Royal Oak, but it is assembled by the Vacheron team of watchmakers here in Geneva.
The next acheron Constantin is with the beautiful Malte Openworked Tourbillon Ref. 30067 coming in this tonneau shaped case, size 36mm in width and 11.8mm in height.
This one is also heavily skeletonized and engraved, on the dial side, you will see a date indicator at 2 o’clock and a power reserve indicator at 10 o’clock and coming back to what I just mentioned before, well when you wind this timepiece you will see the indicator go up and at the same time the shape of mainspring inside the barrel change. Interesting as well, a tourbillon cage is almost always equilibrated and if you have a look at the cage of that tourbillon you will recognize the malta cross, symbol of Vacheron Constantin.
The Opus 5 by Harry Winston made in 2005 in collaboration with Felix Baumgarter, the Opus series of watches having been initiated at the time by Max Busser when he was CEO of Winston.
This piece is pretty spectacular in terms of size, 50mm in width and it does weigh quite a lot, quite a nice hockey puck of gold on your wrist there, but how original is this!
The crown is well protected at 3 o’clock under an 18K rose gold protection hood and I have to admit that it is quite pleasant to manipulate it, especially to find this pretty large sized crown making winding and time setting operation very comfortable.
The movement which holds 122 hours of power reserve is made of Arcap, a pretty rare alloy used in watchmaking, another Urwerki touch to this piece, as well as this special screw also found on the back where the owner can directly act on the length of the hairspring and therefore adjust by yourself the speed of your watch depending on your wearing habits.
Anyhow, quite a crazy piece and overall there were 100 Opus produced, 45 in rose gold like this one, 45 in platinum and 10 were gem-set, normal for Harry Winston.
This one is quite a rare piece with this Excenter Tourbillon Ref. 200 made in collaboration with our friend Peter Speak-Marin, but today known as Peter Speak only.
It comes in a 40mm sized case, but standing quite tall at 12.85mm, quite an original shape and talking of original shapes, well the same can be said about the tourbillon bridge seen on both sides. It was limited to 75 pieces in rose gold and another 75 were made in platinum and this Tourbillon watch features kind of a double power reserve indicator that you can see on the case back. On one side it will track the first 50 hours and on the other till the full 110 hours of power reserve.
An exquisite F.P. Journe, the Octa Calendrier Sincere Limited Edition, an annual calendar watch from the mid noughties and made for the Singaporean retailer.
In terms of design specificity, just want to highlight this very original black dial made from mother of pearl and I can promise you that you can’t grasp this just by quickly looking at it.
It is an annual calendar which means that you just have one adjustment to do every year on March 1 to adjust that odd month of February compared to full QPs.
So you have a retrograde date indicator going around the left part of the dial, day indication in the small window at 10 o’clock and month at 7 and it’s limited to 10 pieces.
The Chronomètre à Résonance was also done as a 10-piece limited edition for Sincere and also features this mother of pearl dial, but compared to the previous model, here it’s even harder to distinguish it. Résonance is a phenomenon that occurs for example between two oscillating balance wheels
if they are placed close enough with the ultimate goal of making this piece more accurate as these balance wheels adapt to one another.
At noon you have a power reserve indicator made in the style of F. P. Journe. It means zero is fully wound and 40 means that 40 hours have passed since it was fully wound, kind of opposite to what is done today but on par with what was done centuries ago.
At twelve o’clock you have a crown to wind the barrels in the first position and set the time in the second position. At 4 o’clock you have an additional crown which just serves to synchronize booth second hands.
So we’ve reached the end of this review and there are plenty of other interesting lots regarding this soon to be auction of the 12th of March and don’t hesitate to go Ineichen’s website to see this by yourself.