This watch was the ninth tourbillon made by Richard Habring and called by him a "semi-flying tourbillon " It was in September 1989 that Richard Habring presented his first tourbillon in the form of a tiny carriage clock with a movement about 35 mm long in a linear arrangement. After completing his apprenticeship as a watchmaker Habring prepared for the master watchmaker's exams in only one year and during this time also found the time to design and manufacture this tourbillon. The design is very traditional, following the studies of Abraham Louis Breguet who had invented the system about 200 years earlier. A total of 600 hours was required for the design and manufacture.
This started a long list of tourbillons over the years, unique pieces as well as pieces that have been manufactured in series. Having tried most of the possibilities to make different types of tourbillons over the years, Richard Habring has become one of the noted specialists in tourbillon design. It was his groundbreaking idea in the early 1990s to use a high precision ball bearing for the carriage instead of steel pivots in rubies that enabled many of the "flying tourbillons" we see today, - tourbillons without an upper carriage bearing.
Biography of Richard Habring courtesy of the PuristSPro website.