Parmigiani Fleurier

A super rare, charismatic and impressive rose gold minute repeating wristwatch of the Swiss haute horlogerie brand Parmigiani Fleurier, founded in 1996 by Michel Parmigiani, famous watch and clock restorer, with financial help from the Sandoz Foundation. Estimated production period: 2011–2022, most probably 2011–2013. Case made of 18k rose gold, diameter 42mm, sapphire caseback with signature of Michel Parmigiani. Matte silver-plated dial, hand-guilloché barleycorn pattern, slightly recessed sub-dials with fine circular grooves, circularly brushed peripheral dates scale, Parmigiani Fleurier ‘javelin’ hour and minute hands. Caliber PF250, manually-wound, power reserve up to 45 hours. Functions – indication of hours and minutes, small seconds at 9 o’clock, minute repeater chiming hours, quarters and minutes on double-length ‘cathedral’ gongs, 24-hour second time zone or day/night indicator at 3 o’clock, date indication by central hand. Parmigiani Fleurier black leather strap, made by Hermès, Parmigiani Fleurier Toric 18k rose gold pin buckle. 

The family of minute repeating calibers, featuring double-long, so-called ‘cathedral’ gongs, was launched by Parmigiani Fleurier in 2011. The immediate impetus for this development was the early 19th century Perrin Frères pocket watch with a wandering hours complication that Parmigiani Fleurier restored for the Edouard and Maurice Sandoz Foundation’s collection of timepieces. The unusual and very resonant minute repeater gongs of this pocket watch, which were made of decorated blued steel shaped as a snake, inspired Michel Parmigiani to use a similar technique in a wristwatch movement. Modern wristwatches with a minute repeater and a sealed case always face the problem of insufficient sonority of the chime. Double-length gongs are one promising way to solve this problem. It is also useful to create a larger internal volume inside the watch case, which contributes to the resonance of the sound.