Tourbillon

English: Denison Double Three-legged Gravity Escapement - animation, as used in many Tower Clocks. This design is the one used in the Great Court Clock of Trinity College Cambridge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tourbillon timepieces, while very visible in the watch media, are still quite rare in terms of units produced. Most models presented by companies other then the established giants, are often limited to tiny lots.  Tourbillon is not a simple timepiece but an artistic and technological marvel.

Find Tourbillon Watches at Amazon

Verge escapement showing ( c ) crown wheel, ( v ) verge, ( p,q ) pallets (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tourbillon escapements in wrist watches have no practical purpose, and are produced for the sake of appearance only.  A tourbillon most often makes one complete revolution per minute, which has no effect in the two horizontal positions, but makes all the difference in the 4 vertical positions, since even if a watch is stationary in a random vertical position, the tourbillon makes the escapement spin around its own axis, effectively cancelling out the effects of gravity of each of the 4 generalized positions.  A tourbillon presents today's watchmakers the possibility of higher accuracy than conventional movements.

Zenith Men's Xtreme Tourbillon Titanium Chronograph Watch 

A tourbillon compensates for the effects of movement and gravity by creating gyroscopic stability within a clock’‘s mechanism.  A tourbillon is a type of rotating escapement that was originally designed to make mechanical watches more accurate.  A tourbillon movement is synonymous with high-quality watches.

Find Android Men's Virtuoso Tungsten Mechanical Tourbillon Watch here.