Homegrown luxury watch retailer Sincere Fine Watches turns 70 this year. To mark the occasion, Christiaan van der Klaauw Astronomical Watches (CVDK) has unveiled a limited-edition watch, applying the atelier’s expertise in celestial timekeeping to celebrate Sincere’s latest milestone.
Over the past five decades, CVDK has carved a niche for itself with its unique commitment to producing handmade astronomical timepieces. The CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric Sincere Platinum Jubilee Edition represents the pinnacle of this specialisation, tracking the orbits of all eight planets within our solar system, with an eye on mirroring reality as closely as possible.
This has been made possible by an expertly constructed network of gears, with an impressive total of 3,338 teeth — all this within a case that’s just 15mm thick.
Of course, achieving such a complex creation wasn’t an overnight feat. It started with a spark of inspiration from an earlier marvel, the CVDK Kepler’s Planetarium Clock created by the atelier’s namesake founder in 1995. The idea then passed through two more generations of CVDK — first to husband-and-wife duo Daniël and Maria Reintjes, then most recently to current CEO Pim Koeslag — before coming to fruition.
That patience and persistence has certainly paid off, with the CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric Manufacture movement being the first of its kind in the world, reflecting the eight planets’ movements all together as they circle around the Sun. Closest to the centre is Mercury, with a solar orbit that takes about 88 days. On the far end of the dial is Neptune, which takes over a century — 164.8 years, to be exact — before completing a single revolution.
The movement, viewable through the sapphire caseback, extends the watch’s astronomical theme, with star-shaped bridges and frosted star motifs with rhodium-plated detailing.
On the technical side of things, the movement contains a variable-inertia balance wheel and a free-sprung hairspring, both of which improve the watch’s accuracy and reliability. The rotor, crafted in the shape of the CVDK logo, has a rhodium-plated tungsten oscillating weight on its outer diameter. Developing the movement, which runs at 3Hz and has a power reserve of 60 hours, took the better half of a decade.
The CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric Sincere Platinum Jubilee Edition’s dial features a universe-inspired oil painting by artist Gaël Colon; surrounding this is a zodiac sign indicator. The hand-painted planets each follow an eccentric path; each orbit is not perfectly circular, but rather slightly flattened, reflecting how the planets move in actuality.
The 44mm case has been rendered in 18-karat yellow gold, matching the yellow gold-plated hour and minute hands. Indices have been engraved directly on the top half of the sapphire crystal, so the “universe” below remains undisturbed; CVDK’s logo, similarly engraved, takes its spot at the 12 o’clock position. Framing the watch is an ostrich foot leather strap with a yellow gold folding clasp.
Just three pieces of the CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric Sincere Platinum Jubilee Edition have been created, with the Sincere Platinum Jubilee emblem on the side and caseback to denote the special edition. The watches will be available at Sincere Fine Watches boutiques with a retail price of $280,000 including GST.
The limited three-piece CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric Sincere Platinum Jubilee Edition is exclusive to Sincere Fine Watches.
