Most gold watches stop at the case. Armin Strom’s new Tribute³ Au750, announced on the 2nd of October, does not stop at all: case, dial and movement are rendered in 18k rose gold, eight examples will exist, and the result is one of the warmest-blooded dress watches of the year.
The Biel manufacture has built its reputation on openworked, technically demonstrative pieces, which makes the Tribute³’s restraint the point. The 38mm case is a slim 9.38mm, brushed and polished, and the dial is a study in guilloché done the old way: a radiating sunburst on the off-centred time display, barleycorn across the main plate, every line cut by hand. A grey frosted chapter ring with black Roman numerals keeps the composition legible, and keeps all that gold from becoming a mirror.
Behind it sits the in-house calibre AMW21, a manual-winder of 137 components that holds a remarkable 100 hours of power reserve from a single barrel — four full days of autonomy in a movement just 4.2mm thick. Through the caseback, the bridge is itself rose gold, finished with clou de Paris guilloché, so the metal story continues to the last visible surface. Hence the name: Au750, the hallmark for 18k gold, worn here as a manifesto.
At CHF 69,000 and eight pieces, this is independent watchmaking at its most quietly confident — no tourbillon, no theatrics, just proportion, finishing and a commitment followed all the way down. For the Gulf’s growing congregation of independent-watchmaking collectors, who have lately made room for Grönefeld, Laurent Ferrier and Moritz Grossmann on these pages, Armin Strom’s golden hour has arrived.
