Gold crystal: alchemist Hublot creates magic

Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Cristal d’Or

It is said that what nature creates cannot be reproduced, as natural processes require both time and complexity. Once again, Hublot has made the impossible possible by transmuting gold into its rarest and most exclusive form: gold crystal. This form of gold is unique, it being impossible to reproduce two identical gold crystals. Beyond the fascination that gold has always exerted, it embodies everything that makes Hublot so distinctive: materials, minerals, metals; their fusion and their transformation into new forms of expression, unique and quite unexpected. An alchemy expressed both in the transmutation of the raw material and in the chemistry created by the spirit of the watch itself. This is the Spirit of Big Bang Gold Crystal.

The mysteries of gold crystal

The natural crystallisation of gold dates to a time when mountain ranges formed. It was in these crevices that jets of pressurised heated water extracted the gold, redepositing it within seams in the rocks. On rare occasions, natural conditions would allow the gold to remain in its natural state: gold crystals, the rarest form of gold on earth.

Hublot has mastered a unique technique allowing natural crystallisation to be reproduced almost exactly. By heating purest 24-carat gold to its melting point, its atoms are vaporised into a gaseous mixture before interlocking as the temperature is lowered, forming an open angular structure. Thousands of crystals join to create an architecture which is random, unique, and impossible to reproduce, with no more than 20% making the grade.

The master dial-maker applies the gold crystals to a black dial covered with a fine layer of transparent lacquer; the manufacturing process took this craftsman a year to research and develop, and the application must be undertaken in a controlled atmosphere to ensure no air bubbles can form on the surface. It takes around twenty layers of lacquer to encapsulate the gold crystals. The dial is then polished to render the lacquer invisible, perfectly smooth and uniform.

Spirit of Big Bang Gold Crystal

The Spirit of Big Bang is Hublot’s tonneau-shaped watch, and it adopts all the design codes of the iconic Big Bang: the six H-shaped screws on the bezel, the lugs either side of the case, the over moulded rubber screw-down crown decorated with the iconic H, the sandwich type construction. To provide a perfect contrast with the gold of the crystals, the Spirit of Big Bang Cristal d’Or’s case is covered in black ceramic and paired with a black alligator strap stitched onto rubber. Available in 39 and 42 mm, it will display the time for 50 hours without any winding of its Caliber HUB1710 automatic mechanical movement.

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