BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Chopard has been quietly moving its range of watches around, have you noticed that the Mille Miglia collection has gotten a lot smaller, for example? Or the L.U.C range, as expansive as it is, has had some cutbacks to some models. It’s natural, of course; not every watch is a mega sellout, and that gives you space to do something else, but it is good to remember the classics. For example, Chopard’s L.U.C Strike One has been kicking around for quite a while now; it’s been in the background but is still present. Now it’s time for this intriguing piece to make its way to the spotlight once more.
At Dubai Watch Week, Chopard unveiled this 25-piece limited edition anniversary version of the L.U.C Strike One, marking 25 years of the high-end L.U.C watch collection. The Strike One was Chopard’s first go at a chiming watch and came about in the mid-2000s. Nowadays they’ve got the award-winning L.U.C Full Strike in many different variations, but back then they had this.Â
The L.U.C Strike One has a handsome grey-ish green-ish dial engraved with the honeycomb motif that Chopard has been using for some time now. That’s encompassed by a clear track with applied hour markers and a cutout to see the single hammer for the striking mechanism. The Strike One is an hour-chiming watch, which means that the watch will make one chime every hour on the hour.Â
Sounds simple enough (it’s not), but some extra complexity is thrown in by the pusher hidden within the crown. For those of you with a good memory, or quite possibly those of you scouring Chrono24 for one of these, you’ll note that the pusher used to be at about 10 O’clock on the case but has now migrated to within the crown. That’s more complex than it sounds. The pusher itself silences the striking mechanism, and you can see whether it’s in striking mode or not by looking at the tiny circular cutout just above the L.U.Chopard logo on the dial. The striking mechanism has also changed slightly; the gong is now sapphire crystal and uses the watch’s crystal to amplify the sound further. This technology was developed on the L.U.C Full Strike, and it’s nice to see it used here.
Inside the piece is the self-winding calibre L.U.C 96.32-L. It’s a certified chronometer with a 4Hz beat rate, 65-hour power reserve and has a thickness of just 5.6mm, it also has a glorious micro-rotor. However, the real treat here is the Geneva Seal, the Poinçon de Genève, which guarantees a high level of precision and finishing throughout the movement, not just the parts you can see.
All of that’s wrapped up in a 40mm x 9.86mm 18k ethical white gold case. The ethical part comes from the Fairmined gold which is now the only type of gold Chopard uses. It’s able to blend its gold in-house as we saw on our factory tour years ago, which means Fairmined gold can be used for every application. The watch is presented on a luxuriously thick colour-matched leather strap and is priced at $66,000.
