Christophe Claret’s 21 BlackJack Watch
BaselWorld is around the corner and Christophe Claret would like to share with you the video of their new timepiece, the 21 BlackJack, watch especially made for the blackjack lovers. The timepiece is the third model under the Christophe Claret brand after the DualTow and the Adagio.
Massively complicated, the 21 Blackjack has a brand new Christophe Claret movement in it called the BLJ08. It has 501 hand finished parts and two barrels with a 72 hour power reserve. But what really matters is that in addition to the time it lets you play three games: dice, roulette and cards. The watch features a pair of miniature dice, 1.5 mm on each side, with striking mechanism. When shaken the dice can be used by one or more players.
On the back of the watch is a roulette wheel. It is actually part of the automatic winding mechanism in the in-house made and designed Christophe Claret Calibre BLJ08. The roulette wheel spins as it is the automatic rotor, but here is a little different. The rotor has a minor stop mechanism to stop to a halt in one of the fixed positions when it loses momentum. This causes the little arrow (versus a ball) to stop at a specific spot on the roulette wheel scale.
It is however the game of blackjack that will really get people excited about the 21 Blackjack watch. The system offers a total of 884,736 game play combinations. The basic rules of the house are displayed in the dial of the watch. The dealer must hit on 16 and stay on 17. All of the cards are located on a series of printed solid gold discs under the smoked sapphire dial. Playing blackjack is done via a few simple pushers on the left of the case. There are pushers to deal, and hit for either the player or the dealer.
No Christophe Claret watch is made without some manner of gong and hammers given his love of chiming complications. Each time you hit, a chiming mechanism (similar to that on a minute repeater) using a hammer and gong sounds like you are starting a boxing match. The hammer is visible through a window on the side of the case.
The watch is 45mm wide and available in a few material combinations. All models have titanium that is mixed with either more titanium, 18k white or pink gold, or platinum. There are five total combinations, which means that Claret will build a maximum of 105 of these timepieces (to be made over the years). On the PVD black titanium and 18k rose gold mode, the hands on the dial are not ruby edged, but black ceramic edged, with gold in the center. There are four sapphire crystals on the case.
The 21 BlackJack Watch is available in limited edition of 21 watches per series, which will range around €200,000 (from $183,765 to $216,580). [Trend Hunter]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHAhRW2LNos[/youtube]