The pictures in this article show you the world’s most complicated wristwatch – FRANCK MULLER Aeternitas Mega 4. No other watches in the world can better deserved the name of “Master of Complications” than the four Aeternitas Mega version. This watch pushes the limits for watchmaking and breaks the record number of complications ever housed in a single wristwatch. 36 complications, yeah, you read right, a total of 36 complications have been featured in this extremely watch, consisted by 1,483 components, each of which has been designed to give the watch an elegant design.
How to integrate all the complications known to this day into a wristwatch – this problem brought the enormous challenge to the master watchmakers in FRANCK MULLER. Housing the Aeternitas movement as a base, the watch stands for the pinnacle of the art of watchmaking with its grand and small Westminster chime striking-work, the only one available on the market with a tourbillon visible on the dial. In addition, functions added to the Mega 4 includes a minute repeater, a mono-pushpiece split-seconds chronograph, a perpetual calendar secular, and an equation of time which only varies by 6.8 seconds per lunar month, the equivalent of one day every thousand years!
To mark the official release for this unique watch, FRANCK MULLER will organise two WPHH – World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie – exhibitions this year at its Watchland site in Genthod on 17-23 January and 17-27 March from 9.00 a.m. to 6 p.m. These two exhibitions are expected to receive over 5,000 visitors and 600 journalists, which are musts for both professionals and haute horlogerie aficionados.
When the Mega was incorporated into the Aeternitas project, the culmination of this project was sure to make a difference. Compared to the Aeternitas versions, the Aeternitas Mega 4 is only 0.2mm thick. There are two versions for the world’s most complicated watch – “Grande Sonnerie” features a strike mechanism sounding on the hours and quarter hours, while the strike of the “Petite Sonnerie” version only sounds on the quarter hours. With a simple pressure on a waterproof push-button placed at the 10.30 marked on the watchcase, you are allowed to program the large and small striking mechanisms. The glass sapphire case back allows us to admire the fabulous workings of the movement – the harmoniously chiselled and decorated pieces are cooperated in a stunning combination as a dazzling ballet. The Aeternitas Mega 4 presents a true grandiose work of art culminating in Haute Horlogerie.
As a unique piece in the world, the Aeternitas Mega 4 carries a price tag of 2.7 million dollars.
The complications:
• Hour, minute & second display
1. Day-Night display
2. Grand strike
3. Small strike
4. Silence
5. Minute Repeater
6. Westminster Carillon on 4 gong
7. Programming of the Grand strike-Small strike function with a waterprof push-piece and display on the dial
8. Programming of the Strike-Silence function with a waterprof push-piece and display on the dial
9. Lifting-lever mechanism of the strike when in hand-setting position
10. Mechanism which not allow the start of a new strike if the precedent is not to the end
11. Bolting mechanism of the hand-setting during the strike
12. Transmission mechanism to the hammer which permit the adaptation to different shape of the gong
13. Movement power reserve indicator
14. Strike power reserve indicator
15. Silent Centrifugal governor of the rate of the strike
16. Flying Tourbillon on a ball bearing with ceramic balls
17. Balance wheel with adjustment screws in gold, without index
18. Breguet overcoil with Phillips curve
19. Tourbillon carriage, without any brige, visible in the dial
20. Automatic self-winding-mechanism of the movment with platinum micro rotor
21. Automatic self-winding-mechanism of the Westminster carillon with a platinum micro rotor
22. Perpetual Calendar
23. Display of the days
24. Display of the months
25. Retrograde Date
26. Secular Calendar
27. Display of the year up to 999 years
28. Bissextile year display
29. Indication of the secular years
30. Astronomic moon : deviation of 6.8 seconds for each lunation representing an error of one day every 1000 years)
31. Equation of time
32. Two additional time-zones
33. Chronograph incorporated with tree column-weels
34. Instantaneous minutes counter
35. Hours counter incorporeted in the mechanism of chronograph, retrograde hand display
36. Fly-back hand mechanism
