DOUBLE TOURBILLON 30° TECHNIQUE MODEL, MOVEMENT NO. 23, CASE NO. 01 849, CIRCA 2010

The ‘Double Tourbillon 30° Technique’ is without doubt one of the most spectacular of Greubel Forsey’s remarkable wristwatches. Described by Stephen Forsey as “a theatre, in which the eye is drawn to the highly finished movement”, it boasts an impressive diameter of 47.6 mm. This horological masterpiece is an openworked version of the first Greubel Forsey ‘Double Tourbillon 30° Contemporaine’ launched in 2005. In order to achieve the required degree of three-dimensionality, an entirely new movement was designed which took its inspiration from industrial sources and even Meccano construction sets. The result is a watch of incredible depth and space that displays the inner components to their maximum advantage. In the words of Greubel Forsey, their aim in producing the ‘Double Tourbillon 30º Technique’ was straightforward: “to construct the watch and its movement in such a way that the wearer could observe the movement parts and their interactions with as unobstructed a view as possible.” The level of hand-finishing of the movement is extraordinary, and as the name suggests, features two tourbillon cages; one rotating every four minutes, and an interior cage containing the balance wheel and spring. The smaller tourbillon cage is inclined at 30° relative to the first cage and completes its revolution once per minute. The different rotational speeds combined with the inclination improves timekeeping by averaging out positional errors due to gravity. The movement also features four fast-rotating co-axial barrels guaranteeing 120 hours of power reserve.

A question which has always been asked by connoisseurs of fine watchmaking is, does a tourbillon, for all its beauty and animation, genuinely increase the accuracy of a watch? The Double Tourbillon 30° Technique successfully answered this question in 2011 when it won the ‘Concours International de Chronométrie’ with an incredible score of 915 points out of 1000, the highest in the competition to date.

Offering an incredibly rare opportunity to acquire one of the most exotic and exciting examples of contemporary independent haute horologerie, the ‘Double Tourbillon 30° Technique’ is a distillation of the knowledge, experience and virtuoso craftsmanship of two of the greatest living watchmakers.

Greubel Forsey’s Double Tourbillon 30°
Celebrated as Greubel Forsey's '1st fundamental invention', the Double Tourbillon 30°, so-called because of the angle that links the two mobile cages is a patented double tourbillon system representing a decisive technical advance and milestone in watchmaking history which took more than four years of research and development to perfect. Inside the exterior tourbillon which turns in a four-minute period, an interior tourbillon, smaller in size and inclined at 30 degrees in relation to the first cage, revolves in 60 seconds. To guarantee even more perfect time-keeping, this revolutionary complication permanently compensates the rate of gravity-related errors in all positions. Patented by Abraham Louis Breguet in 1801, the tourbillon is a device created to compensate the effects of gravity on the movement. This is achieved by averaging out the variations of rates for a calibre in different positions by rotating the entire escapement, balance, spring, lever and escape wheel, through 360 degrees over a fixed period of time.

Greubel Forsey
Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey’s working relationship of over 20 years is founded on their shared technical creativity and quest for perfection. The two watchmakers are fabled for their exceptional and avant-garde horology, combining highly complicated mechanical functions with uncompromisingly provocative styling concepts.
Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey have become legends in the world of modern independent watchmaking. Working together since 1992, when they were developing complicated movements for Renaud & Papi, Greubel and Forsey decided to branch out on their own in 1999, setting up as the independents, CompliTime Greubel, la Neuveville and Bureau d’Etude et Prototype, le Locle, respectively. From this moment forward, they are focused on designing a new generation of tourbillons specifically developed to improve the timekeeping of the mechanical watch.