Pocket Thermometer

Monster Machines: This Is The World's Most Complicated Timepiece

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The Patek Philippe Calibre 89 is a timepiece fit for a queen. With more than 30 complications, it’s the most complicated mechanical watch ever devised, and valued at about S6 million, it costs a king’s ransom — that is, if you’re even able to track one down. The Calibre 89 was built as a four-piece commemorative series of pocket watches — as in only four were ever made; white gold, yellow gold, rose gold and platinum — honouring the Patek Philippe company’s sesquicentennial anniversary in 1989.

Development of the Calibre 89 began nearly a decade earlier with the goal of making “the clock with the most complications in the world, containing all the traditional watchmaking techniques accumulated over one-and-a-half centuries,” according to the Swiss Broadcasting Corp . The project took nine engineers five years of research and another four of construction to finish. And in the early 1980s there was no such thing as AutoCAD so this watch was, in every sense, completely hand-crafted.

Source: Gizmodo Australia