Important Collectors’ Wristwatches, P...

Geneva, Nov 16, 2008

LOT 159

Mulliner Tourbillon Breitling, Genève, for ?Bentley Motors - Mulliner Tourbillon, Officially Certified Chronometer?, movement No. 1884B036, Ref. L18841. Made in very few examples only, production of this model started in 2005. Extremely fine, rare and unusual, heavy, oversized, water-resistant, platinum chronometer wristwatch with visible one-minute tourbillon regulator, round button 30-second chronograph, register, tachometer, date, slide-rule and an 18K white gold Breitling deployant clasp. Accompanied by a special fitted wooden box, COSC certificate, guarantee and instruction booklet.

CHF 50,000 - 70,000

USD 46,000 - 65,000 / EUR 31,000 - 45,000

Sold: CHF 51,600

C. Three-body, solid, polished, bi-directional revolving reeded bezel to operate the slide-rule, lapidated lugs, transparent screweddown case back with burl wood veneer ring, screwed-down crown, sapphire crystals. D. Black with applied mother-of-pearl inlaid white gold indexes and luminous dots, subsidiary dials for the date and the 15-minute register, outer 1/6th seconds and tachometer graduations, outermost revolving white slide-rule, aperture for the visible one-minute tourbillon regulator under a hobnail-decorated bridge. Luminous white gold baton hands. M. Cal. 18B, rhodium-plated, fausses cotes and oeil-de-perdrix decoration, 28 jewels, lateral lever escapement with one-minute tourbillon regulator with 3 equidistant polished steel arms, monometallic balance, shockabsorber, self-compensating Breguet balance-spring. Dial, case and movement signed. Diam. 49 mm. Thickness: 15.5 mm.


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Grading System
Grade:
Case: 3

Good
Movement: 2*

Very good

Overhaul recommended, at buyer's expense
Dial: 1-01

As new

HANDS Original

Notes

What is a Tourbillon ? A Tourbillon is a regulating mechanism in which the escapement of a movement is housed within a revolving carriage. It was developed in an effort to attain better precision.When a watch is in a vertical position, the force of gravity will speed the balance wheel as it moves in its downward arc and slow it as it moves upward, creating deviational errors of timekeeping. By placing the balance and escapement in a carriage that revolves 360° per minute, these errors become averaged and the timekeeping becomes constant and consequently adjustable. Created by Abraham Louis Breguet in 1795, the tourbillon is considered a difficult and complex achievement by any watch manufacturer.