Teddy Baldassarre
What Is A Tourbillon?
For many watch collectors, acquiring one's first tourbillon watch is a Holy Grail, a rite of passage into the upper echelons of horological connoisseurship. If you're new to the watch appreciation game, however, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. What is so special about tourbillon watches, anyway, and what makes them so desirable to so many while still being so prohibitively expensive for most? The short answer is that a tourbillon is, in this day and age, less of a necessity and more of a badge of historical high-watchmaking excellence. For a more detailed explanation, read on. The First Tourbillons and Early Innovations The inventor of the tourbillon is a name that is likely familiar to watch connoisseurs. Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823), a native of Switzerland who plied his trade as a watchmaker in Paris, was one of horology’s most significant historical figures, among whose many innovations was the first self-winding movement, the first repeater movement with a gong, one of the earliest constant-force escapements, and the device that he famously patented in 1801, the so-called tourbillon escapement. While the tourbillon is today considered by many to be a complication, like a chronograph or calendar mechanism, its original purpose was a fully practical one, to compensate for the ill effects of gravity on the movement of a pocket watch and thus improve its long-term accuracy. Remember, in Breguet’s time, watches were not worn on wrists, where ...
