grande sonnerie

F.P. Journe Sonnerie Souveraine $650,000 Watch Hands-On

F.P. Journe watches have a very strong following among serious watch lovers. Including those people who can choose just about anything - and often opt for one of Francois-Paul's timepieces. I met with him and he showed me a few pieces including this Sonnerie Souveraine. I last wrote about this piece here when reporting that a pre-owned one went for $400,000 at auction. The retail price of a new one is 650,000 Swiss Francs (close to $650,000). The watch is one of a few evolutions of chiming watches from F.P. Journe, and is likely his most complicated yet. It took years of research and has about 10 patents in it.

The watch is a "Grand Strike clock and minute repeater-" aka, a "Grand Sonnerie." This means that on the one hand, it is a minute repeater (which allows you to activate a mechanism that "repeats" the time back to you in a audio code form), and features and a striking complication (sonnerie). A striking complication is what most people think about when they "hear" clock in their head. It is a function that performs various chimes at regular intervals. This watch "strikes" each quarter hour. During this strike, the sound again is an audio code that when read tells you the time It has two modes to do this "grande" and "petite." This is for a "full" sound with a bit more information (hour and quarter hour), and a "smaller" sound (with just the quarter hour indicated). The watch also has a silent mode if you do not wish to hear chimes each 15 minutes. You can see the mode selection dial on the bottom of the dial that says "G, S, P." The dial also features a power reserve indicator near the top of the dial. Time is displayed via an off-centered watch faces (with subsidiary seconds), and the dial also features a view of the hammers (the two of them are stacked) for the chiming mechanism.

Tags: FP Journe, grande sonnerie, hands-on, review, souveraine, watch

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$2.5 Million Jaeger LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonnerie Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Another stunner from Jaeger LeCoultre. Maybe an understatement? Aside from the looks and the complications, this watch will cost a 'stunning' $2.5 million dollars. That's the price you pay for the "world's most complex watch." If you purchase the watch, Jaeger LeCoultre includes two of its other highly complex watches (the Gyrotourbillon and the Reverso a Tryptique watches) as part of a three watch set. What did you expect for $2.5 million? The entire collection of three watches arrives in a full safe which is ossibly the largest (and heaviest) watch presentation box to date. In total, 30 sets of the three watches will be available.

The Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonnerie will hold the Jaeger LeCoultre mechanical Calibre 182 movement with 26 complications and over 1300 parts. All of that will be inside of the 18k white gold 44mm wide by 15mm thick case. I honestly don't know how they will be able to cram the ultra complex movement and complex chiming and gongs mechanism into such a small space. I am starting to understand where the huge price comes into play. The last two "world's most complex watchess" were the Patek Philippe Calibre 89 which boasted 24 complications and cost $6 million, and the Franck Muller Aeternitas Mega that had 25 complications and cost (only) $1 million. Soon these watches will be supplanted by the Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonnerie. The collection of three watches that will come in the Hybris Mechanica set will together hold 55 complications. For the serious collector, and serious price of the watch, it is clear why they will be delivered in a safe.

So what does the watch do? Many of the complications involve the sonnerie functions that include Westminster chimes (will be the only watch that can play the whole Westminster carillon melody), grande sonnerie, petit sonnerie, minute repeater, a silent mode, flying tourbillon, perpetual calendar with a retrograde day, date, and month indicator as well as a leap year indicator. The watch will of course have the time, with an instantaneous jumping hour display, as well as separate power reserve indicators for the mainspring power reserve as well as the power reserve for the sonnerie. There is frankly too much to discuss in terms of all that is seemingly impossibly included in this incredible timepiece. I am most impressed that despite the many complications, the watch still is able to have a large portion of the dial skeletonized and still be highly easy to read. More details soon as the Jaeger LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Grande Sonnerie is closer to release.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: compications, grande sonnerie, GrandeSonnerie, hybris, jaeger lecoultre, JaegerLecoultre, mechanica, timepiece, watch