Description

This Balancier Asymetrique was launched in 2017. The idea behind the “Balancier” involves a single diagonally inclined balance wheel that serves as the visual centerpiece on the dial. The Greubel Forsey Double Balancier was more complex and sacrificed a lot of legibility in favor of the double balance display. The Greubel Forsey Balancier, however, takes this concept and presents it purely while preserving the same degree of high-quality finishing the brand is known for.

According to Stephen Forsey “The surface is frosted in a hand decoration process that is obtained by brushing the surface of the bridge with a metallic brush.”

The underside is spotted, the beveling and countersinks are hand polished, the flanks are hand straight-grained with a nickel-palladium treatment.

Like many of the Greubel Forsey cases, this one is asymmetrical, which basically explains the case which is circular with a small bump that protrudes outside of the caseband, and that requires a special sapphire crystal to be made in the same shape. On the Balancier, this is also where a small sapphire crystal has been embedded on the flank, right where the bump is, to provide another view of the balance wheel – as it oscillates to and fro. This protrusion not only complicates the manufacturing of the synthetic sapphire crystals, both the lateral and the main crystal, but also the production of the case.

The hour ring is in white gold with a grayish frosted finish and hand matte lapped engraved and black lacquered indices and Greubel Forsey logo. The minute chapter ring also features hand matte lapped markings. “This decoration is realized in a similar way to the flat black polished but uses an abrasive paste with a very fine grain to obtain the matte dark color,” according to Forsey.

The case has been CNC milled from white gold and measures 43.5 mm in diameter across, 52 mm in length, 14 mm thick (13.94 mm is the stated thickness), and with an interlug width of 22 mm. The bezel, case, and lugs have been polished completely by hand. And the caseband has been hand-finished with vertical straight graining to contrast the otherwise fully polished case.

“The asymmetrical design is one branch of the DNA and present in almost half our creations to date. The immediate advantage of this movement structure is the gain in space and the immediate visibility of the four carriages on the dial side, as well as an interesting lateral view,” says Forsey.