Materials are the foundation of any watch, so understanding the properties of the metals we work with is an essential part of our watchmaking journey. We knew early on that we wanted to develop our own gold balance wheel for the next series of 248 watches. Aside from being thermally stable, making it an ideal material for the sensitive balance, it was the material of choice for many English watchmakers in the 19th century.
To get the composition of the metal right, and with so little written down at the time about what alloys these watchmakers were using, we decided to study dozens of heritage balances in our collection by subjecting them to detailed scanning to find the best type of gold alloy to use.
