A standard Rolex has about 200 moving parts. The Patek Philippe on Jay-Z's wrist at the Met Gala has 1,580. Patek spent 8 years designing it. Then over 100,000 hours building the first one. About 11 straight years of someone working 24 hours a day, no breaks.
It's called the Grandmaster Chime, the most complicated wristwatch Patek has ever made. The inner mechanism alone has 1,366 parts. It fits in a circle smaller than an Oreo cookie. The outer case adds another 214 parts, and the case alone took four years to design.
In watchmaking, a "complication" is just any function beyond telling you the time. Most watches in the "grand complication" category have 5 to 7. This one has 20. When it launched, no wristwatch in history had combined that many. It tracks the phase of the moon, accurate to one day's drift over 122 years. It also has five different ways to chime: one that automatically rings the hours and quarters, one that rings only the quarters, one you press a button to hear the current time, one that rings whatever alarm time you set, and one that chimes today's date on demand. The last two had never existed in any watch before. Both were invented by Patek's own president, Thierry Stern, a trained watchmaker himself.
The chiming makes this watch nearly impossible to copy. Inside each one are tiny coiled steel wires called gongs. A single watchmaker shapes and tunes each gong by hand, testing every note with their own ears. Just putting one chime mechanism together takes 200 to 300 hours. Then the watch goes into a soundproof chamber where the chime gets recorded and compared against decades of past Patek chimes. Only then is it brought to Thierry Stern. He listens. If he doesn't like the sound, the watch goes back. Sometimes more than once. A rejected watch can take 500 hours of rebuilding before he approves it.
This watch holds four power springs in total. One is dedicated to the chimes alone, separate from the spring driving the time. Inside the mechanism is a ball bearing 7.2mm wide. It holds seven steel balls, each 0.3mm across, smaller than grains of fine sand. They handle 1,700 gram-millimetres of twisting force from the chime springs without slipping. The case has 11 holes drilled through it for buttons and pushers, and somehow none of them ruin the chamber that lets the chimes ring out clearly. The case itself flips around to show either of its two different dials.
Fewer than five workshops on the planet can build something at this level. Patek Philippe is the one all the others measure themselves against.
Jay-Z's version lists at $6.5 million. The unique steel version sold for $31 million at Christie's in 2019. It still holds the record for the most expensive watch ever sold at auction.
A friend once gave me $1000 so I could help him buy an iPhone 14 Pro Max. Next morning he came excited asking for his phone and I told him, “There’s no iPhone coming… this is now your deposit for your first car.” 😂
Guy thought I had lost my mind. Said I wasn’t his father and accused me of using his money for other things.
I told him to come to my workplace during lunch. When he arrived, I called him into the office and my boss opened the safe deposit box where his money was locked away. Then my boss said, “If you still think saving for your first car is a bad idea, take your money back.”
My guy saw the light and left the money there 😭
Yesterday he pulled up in a GD6 bought for him by his company and said, “Thanks for forcing me to buy that Toyota RunX back in 2022.”
Sometimes you need friends who will tell you point blank when you’re about to do something stupid… not just “yes sir” friends worried about which bar you’re going to this weekend 😂
Anyway do you have crazy friends like that ?
@kwines7@VMusinachirevo Ladies will never understand how embarrassing it is kupinda pabhawa with a skimpily dressed woman. Unoita kunge wakecha. A professionally dressed woman or smart casual is 👌
Black people targeting Black migrants in SA are like “crabs in a barrel” scrambling for white men's crumbs. Author Marquett Burton lashes out at the illegal-migrant protests sweeping the country, calling them hate crimes against easy targets. He believes what’s happening ignores deeper systems that still shape SA’s economy, which belongs to a white minority. The clip’s gone viral, with nearly 20K comments. What’s yours?
#PanAfricanism #Xenophobia #SouthAfrica #Africa #AfricanUnity #AfricaForAfricans #PutSouthAfricansFirst #OperationDudula
Netflix announces a new telenovela, 'The Polygamist' starring S'dumo Mtshali and Gugu Gumede.
Adapted from Sue Nyathi’s acclaimed novel, the 22-episode series premieres on @NetflixSA on 12 June. Produced by award-winning @stainedglasstv_#ThePolygamist#NetflixSA#TVMzansi
Ndakazombo invitwa nebhebhi mhiri kwasamora..ndasvika paya akuti gara mu dinning ndichikubikira akabva abaya ku kitchen, ndakusara ndichiona ka bowl kakane ma fruits pa table ndikati regai ndidye ka apple ndakamirira food, kuruma kudai wanei ndere plastic apa ratodhinda mazino😭👐🏾