De Grisogono The Meccanico dg

De GRISOGONO is about to launch the worlds most complicated Mechanical Digital/Analog watch at Basel 2008. The MECCANICO dG has two time-zones with a traditional analog display on top but one of the more amazing digital displays at the bottom. A pure mechanical digital display imitating LED segments but in fact are rolling tubes! Granted this is a CAD rendering but the real watch will be shown in a few days at Baselworld in Switzerland. I'll be in Basel so stay tuned to The Watchismo Times for the first photos...

The Meccanico Press Release;
RETURN TO THE FUTURE!

The inventors and designers of Haute Horlogerie enjoy a rare privilege: the luxury of choice. Existing constructional principles and concepts can of course always be revisited and reinterpreted but a design team can also decide to strike out in an entirely new direction. Founder and president of de GRISOGONO, Fawaz Gruosi naturally favors the second approach. With the MECCANICO dG, the Geneva-based house's latest entry, de GRISOGONO is introducing a design that projects hallowed horological traditions far into the future. With its 651 components, the MECCANICO dG's mechanical movement is one of the most intricate made today. A Haute Horlogerie timepiece with two distinct timezones, it is the first to display both analogue and digital time by mechanical means. This world first - and de GRISOGONO patent! - features a highly complex time mechanism inside a particularly contemporary design.

For his company's fifteenth anniversary, Fawaz Gruosi, founder and president of de GRISOGONO, was determined to break new ground and explore an area no watch manufacturer had ever ventured into: a digital display driven by an exclusively mechanical system. Although it took considerable confidence and even a touch of rashness to involve himself with a project of this kind, Fawaz Gruosi never looked back, intent on leading the brand into uncharted and definitely challenging territory.

With its patented double time display, both analogue and digital, the MECCANICO dG design inaugurates a totally novel concept in mechanical Haute Horlogerie. A single mechanical movement, twin timezones, two types of display - the MECCANICO dG embodies a major innovation, combining for the first time in the history of horology a digital time display and a mechanical power supply.

A NEW DIMENSION

The digital display is a child of the quartz era. At the time, electronics seemed to have won the day and mechanical timekeeping was under threat. Three decades later, magnificently intricate mechanical movements are more in demand than ever and Haute Horlogerie enjoying unprecedented success. The intervening years saw traditional watchmaking recover and reinvent itself. Generating invention after invention, creating ever more stunning, gloriously finished designs, traditional watchmaking has conferred objet d'art status on its most cunningly complex timepieces. Yet up to now, it had never revisited the digital time display. With the MECCANICO dG, this reluctance is now a thing of the past. The design propels horological history forward into a new dimension.

The MECCANICO dG can be described as a dense cluster of microsystems featuring extremely elaborate cam and gear assemblies. Its exclusive de GRISOGONO handwound mechanical movement comprises 651 components. It is composed of an analogue display of the hours and minutes on the upper dial and a digitally displayed second timezone on the lower dial. The mechanically operated digital display of the second timezone shows tens of hours, single hours, tens of minutes and single minutes, all displayed by mobile microsegments driven by an assemblage of 23 cams connected to a set of gears and a triggering and synchronization system.

The time information is displayed by an array of 23 horizontally and vertically positioned microsegments. Vertical segments are 9 mm high and weigh at most 25 milligrams while the horizontal segments measure 2.90 mm in length and weigh only 10 milligrams. The segments have four faces: two opposing visible faces fitted with colored strips and two opposing unmarked faces. Time changes are effected by 90° rotations of the required segment or segments. Involving one to twelve segments, time changes are lightning fast.

GROUNDBREAKING DESIGN

The MECCANICO dG's exclusive Haute Horlogerie technical design is matched by striking contemporary styling. Its intricate mechanical systems are visible through its transparent dial plate. Also featuring colored strips, the analogue time display's hour markers seem suspended in thin air so as to reveal the underlying mechanism. Like every de GRISOGONO movement, the MECCANICO dG's own caliber is meticulously finished and its components blackened. The words “de GRISOGONO” and “Swiss Made” are inscribed directly on the movement while the back of the watch features a nameplate bearing the name “MECCANICO dG”.

Despite the power needed to action the double analogue and digital display and the torque required to effect the instantaneous rotation of the digital display's microsegments, the MECCANICO's handwound mechanical movement, exclusive to de GRISOGONO, provides a power reserve of some 35 hours, visible through a cambered sapphire backplate on a 90° sectoral display on the movement's reverse side.

The MECCANICO dG case does justice to its exceptional movement. Notable for generous dimensions (56 x 48 mm) and camberedlines, water-resistant to 30 meters (~ 100 feet), this pioneering design is available in a choice of styles: titanium, titanium and red gold, titanium and rubber and titanium and platinum. In keeping with the design's futuristic allure, its correctors and the crown guard are fashioned from vulcanized rubber. Its analogue display is set by the crown opposite 3 o'clock while the second timezone is set by a pair of correctors - for hours at left, for minutes at right. Also crafted from vulcanized rubber, the strap is fitted with a deployment clasp buckle featuring the de GRISOGONO crest.

Launched to mark an exceptional horological year at de GRISOGONO, the MECCANICO dG is being produced in a limited edition of 177 watches in titanium and 177 in white gold.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Reference DG 042
Caliber Exclusive to de GRISOGONO
Movement thickness 11.45 mm
Movement dimensions rectangular: 38.10 x 34.70 mm
Number of components 651 for the movement, 70 for the case
Jeweling 77 (movement and display)
Frequency 28,800 v.p.h. (4 Hz)
Power reserve about 35 hours
Indications Hours, minutes and second timezone
Case titanium; 5N red gold; titanium and gold; titanium and platinum, titanium and rubber
Water resistance 30 meters (~ 100 feet) = 30 atm.
Hands “dauphine” style in 18K red gold
Strap black natural rubber
Clasp Double deployment construction in titanium and 5N red gold.
(The Watchismo Times)