It's a Skeleton; It's a Mechanical; It's a Tissot
Beautiful isn't it? Complexity and Simplicity collided into a single body...... That is my impression on Tissot Chemin Des Tourelles Squelette; that is quite a mouthful..... I would just call it Tissot Skeleton.
Saw this watch at the second hand section of a friend's shop. Apparently, it belonged to a guy who just broke off with his girl friend. He sold off all his belongings and moved on to other part of the universe.... Pretty devastating, pretty tragic..... My guess is the girl friend dumped him... I was dumped numerous times; yea pretty drastic, bloody irrational at the time.... Time never healed the wounds or the sorrows, it just make you forget with traumatic dementia!
Maybe looking at the watch would remind him of the time they shared together.... every single moment that matters.... It no longer matters to her.... and to him, just maybe not able to love her every single second for the rest of her life........ It becomes just too painful, that he needed to get rid of this precious mechanical marvel.
This watch is barely a year old, so everything is as new. The outer box is in flawless state....
Here the inner box and the waranty and manual booklet.
The red and black colour combo makes it a very intriguing watch box.
Open the box, you see a nice mechanical art slumber on the white pillow.
Be honest about it.... Under normal circumstances, skeleton watches are not really my cup of tea. You need to focus your eye lens real hard to read the time. All the gears, the screws, the jewels, the bridges, the moving wheels, the springs.... the non-existing dial is basically a kaleidoscope!
With the current trend of people fancying BIG watch, this 42.9mm diameter watch is considering moderate sized. The case is constructed using 316L Stainless Steel.
Its case thickness is measuring at 11.1mm. The watch comes with dome shaped anti-reflective coated sapphire crystal.
This watch is pretty light; it is about 72gm. From the literature, it has a water resistant of up to 50m/165ft/5bar. Who in the right mind would shower with a casual dress watch?
Tissot did a great job of Perlage (circular graining) finishing parts of the movement to make the watch more high class. The use of blue hands and blue roman indexes making telling time a bit easier.
There is a Seconds sub-dial at the 9 o'clock position. I am not particularly fond of the crown of this watch. For me, it is slightly too slim despite being big enough. For a mechanical watch, the crown is very very important as you need to wind the watch.
Also I think Tissot is too conservative in designing this crown. Since you want it to be an art piece and portraits your watch-making skills, what prevents you to be adventurous in designing the crown? But then again, Tissot is all about practicality and functionality.......
The front and the rear of the case has the mirror finishing. The sides are brushed finish.
One of the reason I coughed up money for this watch is because of the movement. This watch used the hand wound ETA 6497-1. Yes the very same movement that used by Panerai......
This 17 jewels movement has about 46 hours of power reserve and is vibrating at the rate of 18,800 per hour.
The back case is a see through view all type. Tissot decorated the movement with blue screws to enhance its appearance.
This watch is supplied with a black calf leather strap. The strap is opened and closed using a push buttons deployment buckle. The buckle is signed with a big T representing Tissot.
The art of watchmaking is truly portrayed through skeleton watches. Every components and every mechanical works are visible through naked eyes.
The beauty of this watch lies in the revelation of its works, with further rich details demonstrating Tissot's 160 years of watchmaking legacy.
When I was young, I thought winding of watch is a tedious thing.... I preferred the watch that need little attentions and would work anytime.....
Now each morning as I wake up.... I start gently winding the watch and observing that it is working, that is a pleasure and a passion......