traditionelle

Vacheron Constantin Skeleton Patrimony Traditionnelle Watch

At SIHH 2009 this year, Vacheron Constantin really showed the watch world what it does best. The presentation featured several wonderful classic looking watches that stressed the company's heritage and skill set (nothing like the confusing departure to "modern" watches that we've seen in the past).

My choice for Vacheron Constantin's star of the show would be this Skeleton Patrimony Traditionelle watch (the 38mm wide 18k white gold version). It starts with a vintage 1967 Automatic 1120 SQ movement. The movement is remarkably thin at 2.45mm, even though it is an automatic. Everything unnecessary has been stripped from the movement, and the rest has been beautifully decorated and skeletonized as you can see. Even the mainspring barrel has been cut with the hallmark cross of Geneva. There is also a smaller 30mm wide version available that uses a tiny 1.64mm thick manually wound 1003 SQ movement from 1955.

The Skeleton Patrimony Traditionnelle features a diamond bezel (82 diamonds on the 38mm size) set version as well as a plain white gold bezel version. Despite the aesthetic focus on the watch, I like how Vacheron Constantin has not neglected function. The dauphine hands follow a full number index ring around the face with diamond hour markers, that makes telling the time comfortable. This is easily the most function focused high-decoration watch that I've seen from Vacheron Constantin or anyone else.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: patrimony, skeleton, squellete, timepiece, traditionelle, vacheron constantin, VacheronConstantin, watch

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