You may be asking yourself if there is a practical reason to placing the balance wheels at an angle – aside from looking cool. Yes actually. The tilted orientation of a balance wheel offers an effect similar to a tourbillon – perhaps better – when it comes to reducing gravity-related error. Then again, you get most of that just by moving your wrist around in different positions. Have no doubt about it, while tourbillons are cool, and we love them, they just aren’t really about making anybody’s wrist watch more accurate. But they sure do make timepieces feel more special.

The two balance wheels are harmonized so that the watch more or less is operated by their average rate. This is part of improving rate results. The subsidiary seconds dial between them is an indicator of that average. So in addition to having two balance wheels that are sloped for accuracy, the average rate between them is used for the time, further assisting to increase accuracy. Not that people invest in Greubel Forsey pieces for accuracy, but at least you know they aren’t sitting in their workshop in Switzerland considering how to put more diamonds onto their products.

Even with closeup photography, you can see that the detailing of the hand-finished movement components is really good. I don’t always know that Greubel Forsey timepieces are my “style” per se (though I do love the Double Tourbillon Technique), but there is a certain sense of auto-justification inherent in their design. As though the mere Greubel Forsey concept is enough to gloss over design issues or the fact that their watches might not be for yourself. If you are wearing one, pretty much no explanation is necessary. There aren’t too many brands like that. Patek Philippe is probably the most mainstream of the auto-justification watch brands that no one can question if it is on your wrist.

Inside the Double Balancier is the manually wound in-house made (lovingly so) caliber GF04s2 movement. It has the time with subsidiary seconds dial, and a power reserve indicator (total of three days). It continues to amaze me how well Greubel Forsey is able to mix a sensible, straightforward dial with an open design exposing their detailed movement work. It is also interesting to note that Greubel Forsey will produce just six pieces of this Double Balancier. Like I said, they are free to release variations in the future. But still, just six pieces. A rare timepiece indeed, coming in with a price of $435,000. greubelforsey.com