Omega recently released a nearly $500,000 Speedmaster with a brand-new chiming chronograph feature inside.
The Speedmaster Chrono Chime uses three distinct tones produced by hammers striking gongs to indicate the minutes, tens of seconds, and seconds of chronograph time that have passed.
You’d be excused if you didn’t immediately think of Omega when discussing chiming watches, but the company did create the first minute repeater wristwatch in the world back in 1892. To help develop the fully integrated and entirely new Calibre 1932 movement, however, which took six years to complete, it turned to Blancpain, a stablemate of the Swatch Group.
The heart of both the Speedmaster and the Olympic 1932, a watch inspired by the Omega stopwatches used at the first Olympic Games Omega served as timekeeper in 1932, is the movement, which is the most complex Omega has ever created and is also the first high-beat 5Hz version of its Co-Axial escapement.
A large portion of the watch’s resistance to magnetic fields of 15,000 gauss and compliance with Omega’s Master Chronograph certification can be attributed to the extensive use of gold components, which account for more than 46gm of the watch’s total weight in the movement alone.
The 45mm case of the Speedmaster Chrono Chime is made of 18K Sedna Gold by Omega. It has a blue aventurine dial and 18K gold subdials with an acoustic wave pattern that symbolizes the precise sound of the watch.
At two o’clock, a pusher activates the chronograph; at eight o’clock, a lever activates the Chrono Chime.
Though no precise numbers have been provided, it is anticipated that only five of the watches will be produced annually, with a $450,000 USD final cost.
