Published on November 22, 2024
Vacheron Constantin, Corrado Mattarelli, A collected Man
We are always scouring the web for the most amazing watches currently available, and each Friday Shopping Time shares five standout timepieces with you.
While many of the watches we’ve brought you from Patek Philippe to Audemars Piguet and Rolex are wonderous, sometimes, you just want to fall deep into the mechanical artistry of a watch. The best way to do it is by opening up the dial. Not all openworked dials are created equal. The best are designed in concert with the movement to allow for a truly engaging experience when viewing the time. This means, instead of just a view to the mainplate upon which the components are attached, you get to truly peer into the inner workings of the movement and the finishing which adorns it.
Though showing off the works of a watch isn’t a new thing—Breguet famously built pocket watches that exposed the gear train and escapement—the practice really took off during the mechanical watch revival of the 1980s and ’90s. We call this the era of postmodern watches, when time-telling became secondary—even superfluous—to the art of watchmaking. Instead, one’s sense of how a watch was built and how it ran became the thing, making the open dial a perfect way to bring those carefully crafted components to the owner.
Today, we’re bringing you five truly unique examples of openworked watches that will make you fall in love with watches all over again.
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Vacheron Constantin Overseas Perpetual Calendar | $165,000
Image Credit: The Keystone The Vacheron Constantin Overseas is a historic sport watch collection that began with the 222, and has since evolved into a broad collection encompassing the brand’s most impressive complications. In 2020, Vacheron revealed a skeletonized version of their popular Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin in the reference 4300, a first for the modern Overseas collection which was introduced in 2016. The watch itself measured just 8.1mm in thickness, but the open dial revealed surprisingly substantive works of the calendar mechanism in an organic way. The result is a stunning view that is complex and beautiful, without compromising the legibility of the sub-dials.
This example comes to us from The Keystone, and features a 41.5mm rose gold case with integrated rose gold bracelet. The watch shows only small signs of wear, and comes as a full kit. This watch was sold with blue alligator and blue rubber strap options, which can be swapped out on the fly thanks to the quick change mechanism holding the strap in place. Overall this is a beautiful example of one of Vacheron’s most compelling modern watches.
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Alain Silberstein Tourbillon Volant | €25,000 ($26,300)
Image Credit: Corrado Mattarelli This watch is slightly off the beaten path, but it’s an exceptionally interesting concept from one of the great contemporary artists of our times. Alain Silberstein is a French watchmaker, designer and artist known for bold primary colors and geometric shapes informed by his training with a former Bauhaus professor. If you notice the impact of Kandinski here, you’re not wrong. In the early 2000s, Silberstein produced a limited run of the Volant Tourbillon watch, which features his signature design details in the form of blue and red hands in the context of a recessed dial that brings much of the workings of the movement into full view. A visible tourbillon sits at 6 o’clock, serving as a balance to the transparent sub dial at 12 o’clock marking the date.
Just 200 of these watches were made, and since Silberstein has gone on to feature in collaborations from the likes of Louis Errard, MB&F, and Ressence, early work such as this has become all the more collectable. This example, listed by Corrado Mattarelli, was produced in 2004 and is represented in excellent overall condition. This comes as a full kit, making it a desirable bit of Silberstein history.
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Richard Mille RM011 AJ WG | $240,000
Image Credit: Analog Shift Richard Mille has one of the most distinctive ways of displaying the dial, which almost always involves a view of the movement within. The RM011 is a flyback chronograph that was first introduced in 2007 for the brand’s relationship with Ferrari’s then rising Formula 1 star, Felipe Massa. This is among the references that helped set the tone of the brand, which launched in 2001. The modern industrial design is immediately distinctive, and here, offers a glimpse of the chronograph works underneath the dial. It’s far from traditional, but it is avant guard and serves as a highly collectible reference within the pantheon of RM’s history.
This RM011 is the AJ WG, and was produced in the 2010s. Listed by our friends at Analog Shift, it comes as a near full kit including original boxes and a factory certificate confirming purchase date and location. The titanium case remains in excellent overall condition with only light signs of wear. The brand has since moved to slimmer cases, but these original references make a statement like no other.
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Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked | $129,500
Image Credit: Chrono24 Audemars Piguet debuted their Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Openworked in 2016 with the reference 15407, and it’s become something of a flagship for the collection in terms of horological ingenuity. This is a striking watch with a completely open dial that works in conjunction with the movement, showcasing the unique double balance wheel system operating at 8 o’clock. The double balance was developed in an effort to provide greater stability within the regulating organ by using two balance wheels connected to a single balance staff to reduce lateral movement. Plus, it looks really cool.
This example from Chrono24 is from the first reference introduced with this feature, and was produced in 2020. This collection has evolved to include other materials, but this is the original steel presentation built into a 41mm case. Condition is listed as used but very good, and it shows very little visible signs of wear. This could well be a future classic as an introductory reference containing one of the brand’s most interesting modern innovations.
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Roger W. Smith Series 2 Open Dial | £645,000 ($815,000)
Image Credit: A Collected Man Finally, we have an exceptionally special watch made by British master watchmaker, Roger W. Smith. This is a Series 2 presented with an open dial, but it’s a bit different than anything we’ve seen above, as you may have noticed. The inner workings of the watch are revealed selectively, and they aren’t your usual suspects like the balance wheel or the mainspring barrel. Instead, we find items like the keyless works and parts of the going train, each handled like a work of art. This puts the watch in stark contrast to regular production watches we’re used to seeing, and shows Smith’s passion for machining and finishing every component in house.
Any Roger Smith watch is quite rare, and this particular Series 2 coming to us from A Collected Man is certainly no exception. The concept of the Series 2 open dial was introduced in 2008, and fewer than a dozen were produced prior to becoming the Series 5. Suffice to say, this is quite a rare opportunity, and the watch itself is unique and beautiful in so much as it is meaningful not only to Britain, but to the world of watchmaking in general.
Please note that we are not affiliated with the sellers of the watches we recommend. We may point out aspects of a listing that we feel are positive, but only you can vet a seller. We can recommend viewing our video “How to Collect It: Vintage Watches” to glean some best practices, however.
Authors
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Blake Buettner
Credit: robbreport.com
