It's always exciting here at SwissWatchExpo when we get a Tourbillon,
but not just any Tourbillon. This one from IWC also incorporates
a retrograde date and a flyback chronograph. We'll show you all the details coming up.
Welcome back here at SwissWatchExpo, we have IWU 393101. This is an incredible DaVinci from IWC. It
was launched at the SIHH 2017 show and when they relaunched and redesigned the DaVinci series,
they envisioned the larger versions of the watch to be the new flagship that would carry the banner
really for the brand. We have one here in hand. It is just beautiful. It's a flying Tourbillon
and we'll talk about what exactly that means. It's also a flyback chronograph and a retro grade date.
And we'll talk about what each of those is, but just initially when you look at the watch,
it's a 44 millimeter case, which is a great size on most people. It is about 17 millimeters thick.
Now, normally a 17 millimeter thick watch. You would think,
Hey, that's a little on the thick side, but let's face it.
If you're wearing a Tourbillon, you kind of want it to be obvious that you've got on a watch and
it's going to draw a little bit of attention anyway. So it being a little bit on the thick
side really is okay with this watch. Of course, it has a very nice deployant buckle and it has a
custom strap that is only available on this watch. And it's just beautiful. It really adds a piece
of luxury to the rest of the presentation of the watch, but to the mechanics of it
you know, you, if you're watching this video, you probably already know all about Tourbillon
watches. Probably the greatest watchmaker in the history of Horology was Abraham-Louis Breguet,
and he invented the Tourbillon in 1795 patented it in 1801 that patent ran out
a long time ago. And so he's not getting any royalties from these at this point.
I'm sure even Breguet, the company that bears his name, but the idea at the time was that most men
wore pocket watches. And so a pocket watch would be in your pocket in a vertical position most of
the time. And the idea was that gravity might have an effect on the balance as it's turning.
You can think of it as a round pendulum in a clock. It goes back and forth the same
way a pendulum does to keep the time. And there's a gravitational pull and magnetic
force might have an effect on it. So he thought to himself, why don't I encapsulate that
in a cage that turns once a minute, and that will offset anything gravity might do.
So it carried over to, wristwatches not necessarily very practical or really even a, a
good reason to have it in a wristwatch that you're moving around all the time.
In fact, tests show that Tourbillon more accurate than a regular certified chronometer,
but it's visually an absolute treat. When you look at this thing, the word Tourbillon means
whirlwind. And there's just so much going on. It's a sort of an animation to your watch. It
gives you some extra excitement when you look at it.
As you see this one it is called a flying Tourbillon. And the reason for that is that
rather than having a bridge on the top to secure the cage, like you would have on a
standard Tourbillon, this one is only attached to the movement from the backside. So you get an
unobstructed view of the Tourbillon mechanism from the top. It's obviously much more complicated to
make and really only the top watchmakers in the world even attempt such a thing.
So the idea is that by turning the entire balance and escape mechanism once a minute,
that you would have no sort of interference from gravity or magnetism on the movement the
Tourbillon itself is extremely complicated to make just that one part of the movement
is usually about 70 parts. There's hundreds and hundreds of parts in this entire watch.
And it certainly commands the respect of watch guys everywhere, but also
it really is sort of a feather in the cap for the manufacturer that there
aren't many companies that even attempt a flying Tourbillon, but leave it to IWC to just pile a
whipped cream and the cherry and all sorts of other things on top on this one. The date is a
retrograde date. So when it it's, it's kind of a, a lever that points to the 31 days.
And when it gets to the last one at 31, it snaps back to day number one at the beginning
of the next month. If you're in a month with less than 31 days, you can pull the crown out to the
second position, just like any other watch and manually advance it. The chronograph is a
chronograph that operates just like any other, if you do start, stop and reset here, the counter
for the chronograph is at 12 o'clock. It's a hours and minutes counter. So if it's showing,
say when you look at it, 6:30 as though it were a small clock that would mean you had six and a
half hours on the chronograph. But it's a flyback chronograph as well. So if you're timing something
like say laps in a race, it would throw off your timing if you had to stop and then reset.
So instead with a flyback, it doesn't hurt the movement at all to just press the reset button
and you lose nothing. And it just immediately starts timing the next lap. So that's really
amazing. Of course, leave it IWC. You've got a beautiful exhibition case with a gold rotor
and all sorts of decoration. Can't say enough great things about this. Watch, give us a call
here at SwissWatchExpo. We'll be happy to talk about it. The Tourbillon is not something that
you're gonna wear probably as a day-to-day watch, but while when you did wear it it would
really be a conversation piece and command you instant respect from any group of watch nerds.
So give us a call, see if we've still got it in stock. And we might have this one or another one,
but click the bell like and subscribe and get that fresh new SwissWatchExpo content every week.