Meteor Clock - Time Fragments from Space

This is the same piece of rock that was created billions of years ago, traveled across the universe and finally landed on our wrists.

That is an interesting idea. That piece of stone, or in other words - meteorite, is the ideal material to make luxury watches, because it not only has a special appearance, but also contains a whole story, An unbelievable and magical journey.

Manufacture of Romain Gauthier watch dials from meteorites.

Since ancient times, the ancient Egyptians created the solar calendar by observing the change in the rise time of the star Sirius (or Thien Lang - the brightest star in the night sky). And then with the Romans using the Moon to measure time, mankind has always looked up at the sky, observing the celestial bodies to determine the time.

Today, the use of a material from extraterrestrial bodies in watches is relatively new, but it is how we find the origin of timekeeping. A trendy material being promoted by the world's luxury watch brands is meteorites that fell to Earth thousands and millions of years ago.

A meteorite, a material seemingly reserved only for archaeologists or planetary scientists, can now rest on the arm of any watch enthusiast, or simply like to carry around his thoughts. think about the deep and mysterious universe.

The DeBethune Dream Watch 5 Meteorite has a case made from a meteorite that fell in Argentina, which has been heat treated to give it the signature DeBethune line blue color.

We all probably know that the meteorite mined today belongs to a comet or asteroid that fell to Earth. The largest meteorite discovered in 1920 in Namibia weighing about 60 tons, named Hoba, probably fell to Earth about 80,000 years ago.

There are three types of meteorites, distinguished by their rock and iron-nickel alloy content. In which, stony meteorites account for 94% of all meteorites on Earth, iron meteorites account for 5% and mixed meteorites make up the remaining 1%. However, in the watch industry, manufacturers only use iron meteorites, with a large proportion of iron-nickel alloys, to make details.

Meteorites are inherently rare, special, and strange, so surely some people will wonder: "Aren't meteors strictly protected for research? How do brands agree? Can you get your hands on this scarce material for mass production"?

The answer here is that luxury watch brands are also masters of collecting exotic materials. From Jaeger-LeCoultre, Hermès, Parmigiani to Rolex, all of them have launched watches with meteorite dials, even making meteorite-cased watches.

These time machines and their prices may suggest that meteorites are a luxury material, perhaps akin to precious metals. However, meteorite dials can also appear on some affordable watches. The Zelos brand has launched watches with meteorite dials in many collections priced at just under $1,000.

Rolex Cosmograph Daytona with meteorite dial.

In other words, meteorites are not as rare as we think. Furthermore, the dials are quite small and thin, and as most of these luxury line watches are produced in limited numbers, the watch brands don't seem to have exhausted the meteorite supply. precious in the world. In fact, being safely placed behind a sapphire crystal is one of the best ways to preserve the meteorite's interesting material.

After billions of years of absorbing many large and small space debris, Earth now has a sizable supply of meteorites, which are regularly sought by watch companies. A good example of which is the Gibeon meteorite in Namibia, which is a fragment of some celestial body from the belt between Mars and Jupiter; or the Muonionalusta meteorite that hit Sweden. In both places, many meteorite fragments are scattered over a wide area, and some of them are quite large. A meteor falling in some field may look like a giant ore with a pitted surface, but if cut and treated with a special process, the piece will reveal distinctive surfaces.

Ulysse Nardin Planetarium Nicolaus Copernicus meteorite watch.

Meteorites come in many varieties with different ingredients, but ones like Gibeon and Muonionalusta are the best choice for fashion purposes. Possessing meteorites in hand, at this time the work of a watchmaker is really demanding.

First, they had to cut along different planes to see different patterns, some of which showed straight ridges, others had an impromptu look, others a zigzag.

After polishing and cleaning, some chemicals, such as nitric acid, are used to accentuate the contrast between the different components of the meteorite. Because of their all-natural texture, differences in roughness or fineness between different components, if used in watchmaking, meteorites will create a unique appearance.

The hobby of watchmaking must be pushed to the top, when combining the beauty of millions of years of time of a meteorite, with the sophisticated mechanical movement that elaborate artisans create.