watchmaking

Caran d'Ache 1010 Pen

Caran d'Ache has created a pen to honor Swiss watchmaking. The 1010 Limited Edition fountain pen takes its name from ten minutes past ten (10:10), the moment when the hands on a watch dial are perfectly balanced. The pen body is designed to resemble watch gears and is made of rhodium-coated silver. Two cages, one decorated with gear wheels, and the other with the bridges that link them, are fitted over a transparent body. The cap is inspired by watch crowns and the clip resembles a watch hand and is attached to a pinion. The piston pump set with a ruby and a sapphire crystal dome at the bottom tip of the pen containing a balance wheel poised between two rubies. The pen comes in a black lacquered box with a glass bottle containing blue-black ink and a palladium-plated silver stopper. The pen is a limited edition of 500 and sells for $19,000.

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Tags: fountain pen, pen', watchmaking, writing instrument

Richard Mille Planetarium Tellerium

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

The watches from Richard Mille always dazzle and now the watch company has enlisted master watchmaker Stephen Forsey to create this fascinating device, the Planetarium Tellerium. The 21st century version of this classic device is made of titanium, wood, steel, brass, 18kt gold, sterling silver and red rubies. The device shows the time and a perpetual calendar as well as showing the rotation of the Earth over an axis, the rotation of the Earth in relation to the Sun, the angle of the Earth, the rotation of the Moon over an axis, the rotation of the Moon in relation to the Earth, moonphases, the complication knows as the equation of time, and the positions of Mercury, Venus and the Sun. For practical and aesthetic reasons the Earth is not rendered in scale (in reality it is 109 times smaller than the sun). The planets are also not to scale. The planetarium is wound with a lever system, and it has a power reserve of 15 days. The Richard Mille Planetarium-Tellerium will be unveiled at The Hour Glass' Tempus Event on September 4.

Gallery: Mille Planetarium