A German-based watchmaker, Grieb & Benzinger, is known worldwide for its unique skeletonized watches with intricate decorations. The latest product from this company is Blue Whirlwind Tourbillon Minute Repeater Watch.
The Grieb & Benzinger’s masterpiece is skeletonized tourbillon minute repeater based on an extremely rare Patek Philippe Caliber RTO 27 PS manual-winding movement. Interestingly, the same caliber was incorporated in the stainless steel Patek Philippe with the referent number 3939 which was donated to the 2011 Only Watch Auction, and was the top-selling in the auction since it was sold for 1.4 million euros.
Grieb & Benzinger “Blue Whirlwind” Tourbillon Minute Repeater Watch
The German watch brand is specialized in reworking interesting vintage movements and making them one-of-a-kind masterpieces with a modern luxury feel. This particular mechanism is ten to twenty years old, claimed Georg Bartkowiak, the partner responsible for sales and communication.
The movement has undergone more than 15 months of skeletonization and other assiduous and accurate horological work. The mechanism that consists of 336 individual components was entirely modified in the style characteristic of Grieb & Benzinger: fully skeletonized, guilloché and engraved by hand. The movement was reassembled, adjusted, disassembled, and reassembled in order to guarantee complete harmonious functioning of the great number of levers.
Grieb & Benzinger “Blue Whirlwind” Tourbillon Minute Repeater Watch Dial Detail
The fine guilloché on the plates and bridges needed some modifications. Thus, they moved some original drilled holes for less than one-twentieth of a millimeter from their original locations. The wheel on the back of the movement which is visible through the see-through sapphire crystal case back was replaced. The original tourbillon flywheel has been exchanged for a transparent glass wheel to allow the full view of the movement’s inner beauty. On the case back, there is also the mysterious, third wheel that replaces the original gold drive wheel for the tourbillon.
Grieb & Benzinger “Blue Whirlwind” Tourbillon Minute Repeater Watch Caseback
The gear wheels were also adorned with guilloché and the twelve nicely guilloché bridges and cocks domed with rhodium and rose gold.
On the front side of the case, you can see a base plate coated with blue platinum and the silver dial embellished with the Breguet frosted finish which is the signature element of all unique pieces manufactured by Grieb & Benzinger.
Grieb & Benzinger “Blue Whirlwind” Tourbillon Minute Repeater Watch Back
The Grieb & Benzinger Blue Whirlwind is housed in an adorable platinum case with the diameter of 43 mm.
Recently, the unique timepiece was sold to an American collector for € 650,000 ($850,000). When you consider a fact that it took 15 months of work for Grieb & Benzinger to create this masterpiece, I dare to say that the lucky buyer from theUSAgot himself a great deal.
A sublime, pierrless masterpiece.