BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
As Geneva Watch Days, a late-year expo of the latest and greatest watches (although not on the scale of Watches & Wonders Geneva) gets underway, a new competitor for the title of “maker of the world’s thinnest watches enters the ring”. Rather unexpectedly, Konstantin Chaykin has presented his new prototype piece which is currently the thinnest mechanical watch ever made, even if you can’t buy it just yet.
The newest watch is called the ThinKing, a fitting name, really, as it shows the creativity of the watchmaker, who is more used to making timepieces with googly eyes. However, those familiar with Chaykin’s work may recognise that the layout of the ThinKing is quite similar to his famous ‘Joker’ watches (and a part of a collection of watches called ‘Wristmon’), although the usual idiosyncrasies have been swept away to leave the piece with just the hours and minutes being displayed through two portholes. There’s still the logo and brand name engraved on the case to give it an expression, meaning this isn’t just the world’s thinnest mechanical watch but also the world’s thinnest mechanical watch featuring a smiley face.
How thin, you ask? Well, the dimensions of this watch are 40mm x 1.65mm, which beats out Bulgari’s Octo Finnissimo Ultra COSC which is 1.70mm thick, Richard Mille’s UP-01 Ferrari which is 1.75mm thick and makes Piaget’s Altiplano Ultimate Concept (which is 2.00mm thick) look positively obese. Click here for our hands-on with Piaget’s Ultimate Concept Tourbillon piece, the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch.
To achieve that 1.65mm thickness and make the watch wearable, Konstantin Chaykin changed his approach. As with other ultra-thin watches, the back plate of the watch’s case is also the baseplate of the movement, with only one plate over the top to seal it all in. Also, the movement’s design splits the watch’s balance wheel and escapement assembly (which are usually one atop the other), although details are a little hazy on how that works. A re-designed mainspring barrel is also in place, although due to the extreme dimensions of the watch, it has only around 32 hours of power reserve, but more on how Konstantin Chaykin deals with that in a moment. Also, a special kind of stainless steel has been employed to give this watch extra rigidity, and even the leather strap uses titanium and elasticated components which spread the load over the entire watch and strap, this aims to combat the issue of the ultra-thin case bending when worn.
As I mentioned, the watch has a relatively short power reserve and seems quite dainty and impractical. Konstantin Chaykin’s solution to this is to provide something called the Case-PalanKing. The term PalanKing is a twist on a Palanquin which is a type of fancy transport mode which was used centuries ago whereby a person of nobility or royalty is carried in a special transport frame resembling an ornate box, lifted by two or four people at each end. It’s almost a shame that people don’t come with their own presentation box any more…
Anyway, the Case-PalanKing is a stainless steel extra case which connects to the ThinKing and is larger at 45mm x 5.4mm and is made of stainless steel. It comes with an automatic winding setup for the ThinKing’s movement and a crown; interestingly, the Case-Palanking is the only way it’s possible to wind or set the ThinKing via a crown. Otherwise, a special key has to be used. It also adds some much-needed rigidity to the watch. While it’s cool to see ultra-thin watches, I like that Konstantin Chaykin has clearly thought about the practicalities of owning such a watch.
And that’s about it. As this is a concept watch, we don’t have any details on potential pricing or production. I would expect it to be another year or two before we hear about those.
