Another difference is the back of the watch. While the Anniversary Tourbillon has a hunter-style caseback with a hinged cover over the sapphire crystal exhibition window, the 10 Year Anniversary Tourbillon has a more traditional F.P. Journe-style caseback without the hinged cover. The movement, of course, is the same: it is the in-house-made F.P. Journe Caliber 1412 manually wound tourbillon with the hour and minutes and seconds in distinct dials. It does of course have a tourbillon style escapement, which is not visible on the dial (of course).
Like the pocket watch, the tourbillon is on the back and spins the 3Hz frequency balance wheel around on its own axis. The traditional-looking movement is produced in 18k rose gold which is typical for the brand, but highly unusual elsewhere. We actually took a little tour in the F.P. Journe manufacture where they have specially calibrated CNC machines that produce the movement plates from gold as opposed to brass which most other brands do. In addition to being more luxurious, gold will not corrode and tarnish like brass, yet is easy to cut compared to steel.The movement has a power reserve of 56 hours and from the original pocket watch movement certainly scales down to wrist watch size very well. Not having the hunter-style caseback is a plus or minus depending on how you look at it, but I think it works just fine for the piece.
Another difference between the 30th Anniversary Tourbillon and this piece is the case material. For this limited edition “tuxedo watch” set, F.P. Journe decided to produce it in platinum. The elegantly shaped case is 40mm wide and 9.5mm thick – making for a conservative and handsome look on most wrists. I also feel that a design such as this speaks volumes for how important it can be to have a strap that perfectly fits the contours of a case without any gaps.
What I also think is interesting from a collectability standpoint is that a timepiece such as this has all the relevant elements of “F.P. Journe DNA” but doesn’t really look like anything else in his collection. Because these two models are based on the 1983 pocket watch they are a sort of evolutionary short branch that might prove highly unique in the future. In any event, I think these are pretty lovely watches and the 10 Year Anniversary Tourbillon piece is perhaps my favorite of the two because I prefer the dial colors. The F.P. Journe 10 Year Anniversary Tourbillon watch will be limited to just 10 pieces (no surprise there) and will retail for about $130,000. fpjourne.com
