Tourbillon Maker Purnell Debuts its Jaw-Dropping Mechanics at Stephen Silver

Dramatic Entrance:

A few of our customers over the last few months have been treated to a rare sight: an unusual multi-axis tourbillon with not just one, but two fast-rotating cages. It’s fair to say that anyone who has seen the timepiece has never seen a greater display of kinetic energy beneath the dial of a watch. The maker in question is Purnell, a boutique manufacturer of tourbillons and now the most recent brand to officially join us at Stephen Silver.

Until five years ago, Purnell, then known as Cecil Purnell, did a limited and mostly bespoke production of complicated watches for a rarified set of clients. The association with Swiss specialty maker Tec Ebauche, and its star watchmaker Eric Coudray, would change everything. Coudray is one of the leading lights to come out of the Swiss watch industry’s complicated watchmaking boom of the aughts. Working for years at Jaeger-LeCoultre in the Vallée de Joux, Coudray almost singlehandedly developed the brand’s Gyrotourbillon which became a sensation when it was introduced in 2003. While other brands like Franck Muller had experimented with multi-axis tourbillons—a version of the complication designed to compensate for a wristwatch’s movement in three dimensions—Coudray changed the equation by creating a spherical cage moving at a much higher rate of speed, upping both the accuracy and visual drama of the timepiece.

The “Spherion” concept developed for Purnell is similar but adds a much higher level of complexity and speed. Each Spherion escapement is composed of three concentric cages, each spinning at different orientation and speed. The innermost blazes around at one rotation every 8 seconds! Purnell’s current collection is composed of various iterations of this concept. Escape Primo features a single Spherion, while Escape II combines two Spherion escapements for an unprecedented spectacle of mechanics that offers the practical benefits of an averaged (and more accurate) rate.

While Purnell’s very limited production means that only one or two pieces have been available in North America at any given time, we are working to secure a display piece so that the brand’s outstanding mechanics can be readily admired by interested parties. With advanced notice, special screenings can be arranged through the boutique.

Click to view some examples of Purnell timepieces now.

For information on Purnell timepieces, now available in the Silicon Valley area through Stephen Silver Fine Jewelry, please don’t hesitate to contact our SF Bay Area boutique for details, pre-orders, or private appointments.