What do you get when you encase a mechanical watch movement designed to tell time not on Earth, but Mars, in Russian steel used for artillery implements in centuries past, wrapped up with a rare sense of humor in engineering? None other than a singular creation by Russian watchmaker Konstantin Chaykin, and what a statement it is. Goofy, brilliant, and almost sacrilegious (if we are to admit how serious we take ourselves in the snooty watch hobby at the best of times), this piece might pave the way for future colonizers of Mars, and should have probably been on the wrist of Elon Musk, like…yesterday. Except that Elon, like any other (over)qualified bidder, will have to wait till the 2021 Only Watch Auction coming up in November to get a shot at it.
And why would Elon choose this, you might ask? Well, a lot of thought and ingenuity has been put into the mechanism to show time and calendar realities on Mars, which–although having some rough similarities to Earth’s cycle–is quite, quite different, thus necessitating engineering changes from the ground up compared to a watch tailored to our own Blue Planet. While different iterations of time conceptions for Mars exist, Chaykin opted for the so-called Darian Calendar proposed by Thomas Gangale, which you can read more about here, if you’re so inclined. Even the rotation speed of the tourbillon cage is very different than that of a conventional “whirlwind”: while most (though not all) tourbillons designed for our planet have cages that rotate on a 60 second interval, the one in this handcrafted horological oddity completes a revolution on a radically different interval of 61.65 MINUTES, reflecting a planetary reality very unlike our own. The hour, and minute, displays at left and right top show a similar cognitive/planetary dissidence.
While interpreting the ins and outs of this watch at large might take some research on many levels…that unnervingly leering mouth at the lower hemisphere showing the Martian calendar will surely take some of the intellectual pressure off the successful bidder. Who’s that mischief, for? Well, the creator clearly, who’s laughing (probably–and hopefully!–good heartedly) at our befuddlement…all the way to the bank. 😉