Tourbillon - Modern Tourbillon Watches

Modern Tourbillon Watches

In modern mechanical watch designs, a tourbillon is not required to produce a highly accurate timepiece; there is even debate amongst horologists as to whether tourbillons ever improved the accuracy of mechanical time pieces, even when they were first introduced, or whether the time pieces of the day were inherently inaccurate due to design and manufacturing techniques. Nevertheless, the tourbillon is one of the most valued features of collectors' watches and premium timepieces, possibly for the same reason that mechanical watches fetch a much higher price than similar quartz watches that are much more accurate. High-quality tourbillon wristwatches, usually made by the Swiss luxury watch industry, are very expensive, and typically retail for tens of thousands of dollars or euros, with much higher prices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or euros being common. A recent renaissance of interest in tourbillons has been met by the industry with increased availability of time pieces bearing the feature, with the result that prices for basic tourbillon models have receded somewhat in recent years (whereas previously they were very rare, in either antiques or new merchandise); however, any time piece that has a tourbillon will cost a great deal more than an equivalent piece without the feature.

Modern implementations typically allow the tourbillon to be seen through a window in the watch face. In addition to enhancing the charm of the piece, the tourbillon can act as a second hand for some watches as it generally rotates once per minute. However some Tourbillons spin faster (Greubel Forsey's 24-second tourbillon for example). There are many watches that feature the oscillating balance wheel visible through the watch dial that are not tourbillons. This feature is often referred to as "open heart".

In the late 20th century, the first research into multi-axis tourbillon movements was done by British clock makers Anthony Randall and Richard Good, eventually producing two and three-axis tourbillon movements.