This new Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 2 may not be as expensive as a Bugatti Veyron, but it surely costs more than an average Rolls-Royce.
Designed for the sort of customers who usually don’t look too closely at price tags when it comes to particularly exclusive toys, this ultra-limited edition hand-wound timekeeper’s purpose is not to tell time (although the team of engineers behind this gorgeous contraption went to great lengths to assure the gadget’s superior ability to keep good time) or to put on display a speck of enormous wealth of its owner.
It is a sort of showcase of the young brand’s technical prowess when it comes to ultra-complicated mechanisms and their ability to make them by the dozens.
The young Swiss Manufacture that was established only seven years ago has once again presented a watch that makes even the most revered Swiss Maisons to blush from embarrassment: it is almost unfathomable how just two master watchmakers can churn out extremely complex movements that -figuratively speaking- swims in circles around brands that often take great proud in their ability to make a “simple” tourbillon.
Their gorgeous DT30° Double Tourbillon design impressed members of the Richemont group -the investment company also happens to own such gems as the German manufacturer A. Lange & Söhne, the French brand Cartier, as well as the Swiss-based Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Vacheron Constantin– to such a degree that they bought 20 percent stake in Greubel Forsey in less than two years after it was established.
The hand-wound Calibre GF03n that powers the GF Invention Piece 2, incorporates Greubel Forsey’s most fabulous invention — the aforementioned twin tourbillon escapement.
In two words, the system features an inner tourbillon carriage inclined at a 30° angle and completing a full rotation in sixty seconds, and is placed inside a larger tourbillon carriage that makes one rotation in four minutes.
Working in a pair, the tourbillons significantly increase the timekeeper’s precision when compared to a simple tourbillon model.
When constructing its first Quadruple Tourbillon, Greubel Forsey has even taken a step further, making the twin tourbillon modules work in pairs and providing the Invention Piece 2 with even more flat torque.
To provide the system with adequate power, GF has equipped the movement with rapidly rotating triple barrels that are hidden between the hour and minute subdial at 5 o’clock.
The time on the sub-dial is displayed with a red arrow (hours) and a rotating disk (minutes,) which is partially covered with a Greubel Forsey logo.
The subsidiary second display is placed in a somewhat unusual place at 10 o’clock, to the left, and slightly below the power reserve indicator, which is located between 11 and 12 o’clock.
Both indicators feature thin, flame-blued steel hands.
The whole display is covered with an asymmetrical convex sapphire crystal with an additional lateral window providing a better view of one of the twin tourbillon carriages.
The case itself, while not particularly huge (it is only 43.50 mm in diameter and 16.28 millimeters in height) looks bulky, but that’s okay since the Invention Piece 2 was not designed as an everyday timekeeper.
Issued in a limited edition of 22 pieces (11 in platinum and 11 in 18-karat rose gold,) it is destined to become a high-valued collector’s item.
See also: DeWitt Twenty-8-Eight Regulator A.S.W. Limited Edition
Photos: Greubel Forsey
WWR preliminary verdict
Originality 5/5
Build quality: 5/5
Usability: 3.5/5
Overall Legibility: 3/5
Nighttime Legibility: 3/5
Value for money: 5/5
Greubel Forsey Invention Piece 2 specification
Movement: Hand-wound, Calibre GF03n, 37.00 mm in diameter, 11.87 mm in height, Quadruple Tourbillon (a pair of twin-tourbillon escapements,) in-house, Swiss Made
Jewels: 64
Cadence of balance: 21,600 vph
Components: 594
Functions: Hours, minutes, small seconds, two twin tourbillons, power reserve
Power reserve: 56 hours
Case: Rose gold or Platinum 950
Shape: Round
Size: 43.50 mm
Case height: 16.28 mm
Dial: Opaline silvered
Numerals: Arabic
Hands: Steel, heat-blued
Water resistance: 30 meters
Strap: Hand-sewn black alligator with platinum 950 or 18-karat rose gold folding clasp, hand-engraved with the Greubel Forsey logo
Crystal: Sapphire, antireflective
Back: Sapphire