CLEAR CASE
Armin Strom says its desire to utilize sapphire to showcase the unusual
ARF17 movement should be is quite – ahem – clear. Armin Strom founder
Serge Michel explains that “there is a lot of work done by hand and we
wanted to have the possibility to show the 360° decoration on every piece
from Armin Strom and this one in particular.”
He adds that his team found it difficult, however, to cut, mill, polish and
assemble the sapphire crystal case components, especially given the large,
59mm long case. The team required diamond-coated tools to cut and mill
the case components from blocks of sapphire crystal. After machining, the
sapphire needs to sit untouched to allow any tension generated by the heat
of machining to be evenly distributed. The case is then polished for days to
make it transparent.
The Armin Strom Dual Time Resonance Sapphire offers the fourth case
option for this eight-piece limited edition watch, with limited editions also
made cased in titanium, rose gold and white gold.
Price: $268,000.
SUMMER 2019 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 79