The Ethiopian Caterpillar is a bejeweled automaton from the year 1820. Attributed to Henri Maillardet, only six automaton caterpillars are known to exist and the other five are in prestigious collections in Europe, include one in the Patek Philippe museum and another two in the Sandoz collection (see Parmigiani for more on them).
The pre-sale estimate for this piece is $350,000-$450,000.
The Ethiopian Caterpillar is a bejeweled automaton from the year 1820. Attributed to Henri Maillardet, only six automaton caterpillars are known to exist and the other five are in prestigious collections in Europe, include one in the Patek Philippe museum and another two in the Sandoz collection (see Parmigiani for more on them).
The pre-sale estimate for this piece is $350,000-$450,000.
We had the pleasure of meeting with Thomas Prescher at BaselWorld over the weekend. You may remember Thomas from his unbelievable double retrograde Qatar watch that we wrote about a few months back. He is also featured in both recent books on the world's most important independent watchmakers. Thomas Prescher is credited as "the inventor of the flying triple axis tourbillon," and that is exactly what he explains in the video below. His unbelievably…
The UR-110 Torpedo from URWERK was released in January 2011.
The case of the UR-110 is made of grade five titanium, and it features a stainless steel bezel. The satellite-based movement took the entire team almost 2 years to develop. It consist of a central carousel providing the mechanism with stability and equilibrium; planetary gearing assuring the parallel rotation of the three hour satellites as they orbit the dial; and three counter-rotating…
The Reactor Trident is currently on its way to becoming the most popular watch among men and women in the armed services. The reason? Legend has it it survived 2 IED attacks and a suicide bomber. We at Hodinkee decided to put it through more real life situations, things that we go through with our watches every day. We dropped it from a 40ft bridge, threw it against a brick wall, ran it over with a Bentley, and hit it with a hammer 8 times.
The Girard Perregaux Vintage 1945 Jackpot Tourbillon is a $625,000 novelty with a true re-creation of the Charles August Fey's "Liberty Bell" slot machine. Each time a wheel stops, a chime is struck giving off a similar sound to a minute repeater.
You've never seen anything like it.
Back in Basel, we had the chance to sit down with Martin Frei, chief designer for one of our very favorite modern haute horology brands, Urwerk. He walked us through his entire design philosphy and explained each of Urwerk's timepieces.
Just a few weeks back, Urwerk released their Black Cobra CC-1 and that got the whole world buzzing. The Cobra looks good, there is no doubt about that, but after reading some other blogs posts on this watch, it…
This video was filmed at the SIHH 2011. Stephen Forsey, co-founder of Greubel Forsey, walks us through their latest novelty, the Invention Piece 2. This timepiece features a quadruple tourbillon and will be made in a limited edition of 22 pieces world wide.
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