Special Watch Commissioned for a Chinese collector
August 8th 2014 (8.8.2014) was a lucky day for a passionate Chinese watch collector who was born in the year of the dragon and therefore addicted to dragon collectables. After 8 months of waiting, a very special BLUE DRAGON IMPERIAL has been handed over to his lucky owner. A personal bespoke (time)piece of art, made with the best materials and full of personal meanings for the owner. The dragon has always been the symbol of imperial power – a symbol for happiness, peace, protection and destiny. And since 8 is the Chinese lucky number, this dragon project was blessed with triple luck.
The BLUE DRAGON IMPERIAL alludes to and combines Chinese mythology with the craftsmanship of GRIEB & BENZINGER, for which the workshop is famed. This outstanding watch impresses by its amazing skeleton dragon which is fully skeletonized out of the movement itself and majestically floats within the case. Historical handicrafts and fine skills are exhibited by GRIEB & BENZINGER within this BLUE DRAGON IMPERIAL watch: hand-skeletonization, hand-guilloché, hand-engraving and of course fine watchmaking.
The blue platinum coated movement is tribute to very rare historical Swiss watch making roots: Blue movements have mainly been built for the Chinese market in imperial China of the Qing Dynasty under Emperors Jia Qing and Dao Guang. GRIEB & BENZINGER is lucky enough to own one of these very rare original blue watch movements (made by Charles Oudin in about 1820) - the historical roots comes full circle.
As with every GRIEB & BENZINGER creation, this is an exceedingly rare timepiece. This bespoke BLUE DRAGON IMPERIAL comes in a solid 18K palladium-white gold case and a bezel set 66 finest Princess cut diamonds. The price tag hit the US $ six digit region, but this is not a big surprise realizing it’s again a bespoke handmade GRIEB & BENZINGER.
Fully hand-skeletonized manually wound movement, also guilloché and engraved by hand. Solid 18K palladium white gold case, bezel set with 66 high grade Princess cut diamonds, 43 mm in diameter, blue alligator-skin strap with solid 18K buckle.