After an explosive debut that included a diamond-encrusted watch priced at over $1,000,000, Biver is back with its second production model. Biver is the brainchild of Jean-Claude Biver and his son, Pierre. Think of it as Jean-Claude’s swan song and his son’s debut — a horological Biver ouroboros, ensuring that the legacy continues. Unlike its chiming, spinning debut piece, though, the new Biver Automatique watches — four in all — keep things decidedly simple, but appear to pull out all the stops in doing so.
The new Biver Automatique features a case design identical to the brand’s debut piece, the Biver Carillon Tourbillon Minute Repeater. Obviously, this doesn’t have the actuator for the carillon, but the lug and case design are otherwise the same, though with smaller dimensions. Offered in either platinum or 18k rose gold, the cases measure 39mm with a thickness of just 10mm and a lug-to-lug of 47.5mm — close to ideal for many consumers, and certainly on trend in today’s market. The watch is paired with a sapphire crystal and a logo-etched crown, achieving a water resistance of 80m, which is as quirky as Biver himself.
The Automatique will be offered in four dials: two in the regular series, and two in what Biver is calling the Atelier Series. While I assume all production of Biver watches will be limited, the Atelier Series will see even further limitations and implement stone dials, with the stones used changing from year to year. The dials of the regular series will use either 18k white gold (in the platinum case) or 18k rose gold (in the rose gold case). The Atelier Series will see sanded obsidian in the platinum case for a look I’d call Industrial Luxury, and pietersite for the rose gold case. The swirling texture in the photos of the pietersite may be a bit misleading; the mineral is akin to tiger’s eye with high chatoyancy and accents of white and orange. You can likely expect a lot of shifting to the dial’s appearance in different light.
Glancing at the regular models, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the cheaper (by magnitudes) Baltic Prismic. While the Prismic has a sub-seconds at 6, the overall design is very similar, with complementary finishes and textures, blocky hour markers, and beveled hands. The Biver Automatique dials are appointed with either 18k rose gold indices, 19k white gold indices or 18k rose gold with an anthracite finish on the regular rose gold model. Note also that the minute tracks match the case and dials but are different for the Atelier series. The Atelier Series’ track simply offers additional hashes for the minutes, while the regular Automatique watches have numbering at 5-minute intervals for a much sportier look. The hands match the markers in each case and are beveled and finished by hand.
Biver has worked with the renowned movement house Dubois Depraz (you may know it better for its chronograph modules than for its movements). The result of the collaboration is the JCB-003, a completely new caliber that will be used on future references as well (the JCB-001 was featured on the Carillon Tourbillon while the JCB-002 was used for Biver’s Only Watch 2023 submission). This automatic micro-rotor movement is meticulously finished with graining, Clous de Paris guilloche, black polishing, and satin finishing. The micro-rotor is made of 22k gold, and the watch operates at 25,200 vph with a power reserve of 65 hours. While not featuring any complications, it does have a zero-rest mechanism that snaps the seconds hand to zero when the crown is pulled out to set the watch.
Biver launched with a fairly big bang, the $500k+ Carillon Tourbillon Minute Repeater. That was a showstopper in just about every way, but the new Automatiques deliver more sedate but no less refined timepieces on the same platform. By introducing this design as its second model, Biver is establishing a clear and coherent design language, something brands of all levels struggle to do. The Biver Automatique watches on leather straps are priced at CHF 78,000 in platinum and CHF 75,000 in rose gold. The Biver Automatique Atelier Series on leather straps are priced at CHF 92,000 in platinum with an obsidian dial and CHF 89,000 for rose gold with a pietersite dial. Each model is also available with a five-link “Biver” bracelet for an additional CHF 29,000. For more information, please visit the Biver website.
