An extremely rare Richard Mille Limited Edition RM56-02 Tourbillon Sapphire is set to cross the auction block next month, giving watch collectors an exclusive chance to get their hands on the technical masterpiece. The timepiece is being sold by Christie’s New York at its June 10 Important Watches live auction at Rockefeller Center. Expected to sell anywhere between $3 million to $4 million, the highly desirable Richard Mille is the most expensive watch to be offered by Christie’s New York. The stunning RM 56-02 was released in 2014 as an outlandish sapphire creation that shared design and technical aspects with the RM 27-01 Nadal watch.
The highlight of the RM 56-02 is the unprecedented use of sapphire to create a timepiece that offers an extraordinary level of transparency. The timepiece features a three-part case that’s entirely crafted out of sapphire crystal. According to Richard Mille, each case took 40 days of around-the-clock machining to produce. In addition to that, the transparent sapphire bridges took 400 hours to make, which is absolutely crazy. The other innovation that makes the timepiece a horological masterpiece is the unique cable and pulley system that suspends the movement from the sapphire case.
The grade 5 titanium baseplate is entirely suspended within the sapphire watchcase by a specially developed single braided cable of only 0.35mm thickness. It uses a system of four pulleys on the case and an additional 6 on the baseplate. The tension of the cable is controlled by a miniature ratchet at 9 o’clock, while an arrow-shaped indicator at 12 o’clock visually reveals the tension of the cable. Only 10 examples were made almost a decade ago, each selling for slightly more than $2 million. It will be interesting to see if the timepiece manages to surpass its pre-auction estimate.
This is the same watch that caught the eye of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife at the pre-wedding celebration of Anant Ambani earlier this year. For all you know Mrs Zuckerberg may bid for it anonymously as a gift for her husbands 40th birthday?
