On April 9, Vacheron Constantin announced its Les Cabinotiers – The Berkley Grand Complication, the world’s most complicated watch. The same title was held by the watchmakers earlier as well with the release of Vacheron Constantin 57260 pocket watch in 2015, a watch with 57 complications. The brand has surpassed its previous achievements with the latest introduction of 63 complications that includes a Chinese calendar programmed until the year 2200.
The highly complex watch has been specially designed for and named after billionaire William R. Berkeley, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the New York University and the owner of W. R. Berkley Corporation.
At the heart of this timepiece lies the double-sided Calibre 3752, built from 2,877 components, 31 hands, 245 jewels, and 9 discs. The impressive 63 complications are categorised into nine groups: seven for the Gregorian perpetual calendar, nine for time measurement and regulation, four for split-second chronograph, 11 for the Chinese perpetual calendar, two for the Chinese agricultural perpetual calendar, seven for alarm functions, eight for Grande Sonnerie, nine for astronomical indications, and six for additional functions.
The watch’s time measurement capabilities include regulator-type hours, minutes, and seconds for mean solar time. It also features a day and night indicator for a reference city, world time display for 24 cities, a 12-hour second timezone display accounting for both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and an additional day and night indicator.
The standout innovation of Les Cabinotiers – The Berkley Grand Complication is its incorporation of the traditional Chinese calendar into a perpetual calendar format. It displays the shifting date of the Chinese New Year, which can vary between January 21 and February 21. On its front face, the watch offers various indicators related to the Chinese calendar like the identification of common and leap years and the duration of lunar months. The date, day, and month are displayed using Chinese characters, and the sexagesimal cycles, a key component of the Chinese cosmological system.
Additionally, it also has the Westminster Carillon chiming, comprising five gongs and five hammers. As a remarkable feat of horological mastery, Vacheron Constantin’s artisans integrated a Grande Sonnerie mechanism with a Westminster carillon into Calibre 3752. This intricate marvel echoes the iconic melody of Big Ben’s bells, with the chimes consisting of four groups of four notes played at varying pitches, with an extra note signalling each passing hour.
The pocket watch made by Vacheron Constantin, which held the record until now, featured 57 complications, 242 jewels, weighed 957, was protected by 10 patents, equipped with 31 hands, had 2,826 complications, was developed through 85 different prototypes and took over eight years. Estimated at $8 million, it was commissioned by an American collector who wished to remain anonymous.
