When Wearing A Rolex Feels Like You're Wearing a Timex

[BristolCavendish]

Just returned from a dinner engagement in Ross. A former academic mentor of Mrs. BC's who is now a retired professor invited us over along with two other couples. As it turned out, the retired professor and one of the other male guests happened to be 5th degree/black-belt WIS (in other words, I was way out of their league in terms of watches and knowledge of complex movements). One guy was wearing an older Breguet and the retired professor had on a Girard Perregaux. Both were tourbillons and when they started talking about gravitational shifts, floating escapements and whatnot, I became somewhat lost and relegated myself to simply listening and nodding from time to time.

When one of them asked me what kind of watch I wear for everyday use, I just shrugged and showed them my 16610 on a blue-gray NATO watchstrap. While I wouldn't go so far as to call them watch snobs, it was somewhat obvious that they weren't overly impressed with a Rolex movement.

Which raises a question for the horologically inclined. Are complex tourbillon movements an antiquated watch design and essentially overpriced? There was also mention of a recent offering from Seiko along these lines. Now I had always thought that Grand Seiko represented the top of the Seiko lineup but apparently they have a line called Credor which is their in-house tourbillon. Their masterpiece is something called a Fugaku which apparently retails for around $450K. To date there are only eight in existence and I thought to myself, who buys this kind of watch?

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/th...ion-tourbillon

On the other extreme, manufacturers in China are now cranking out tourbillons for $1500. While their movements are kind of ugly IMO, from a tourbillon standpoint they may be close enough for jazz.

http://www.perpetual-watch.com/tourbillon.html

It appears that Rolex never had much interest in this kind of movement. In terms of overall accuracy/design, a tourbillon movement seems like old technology or just a rich man's toy.

Curious. Are tourbillons impractical for 'sport watch' usage/application as well? The Swiss-made tourbillons look pretty delicate. On the other hand, the Chinese ones look one step above a Seiko 5.