Antoine Preziuso - a watch with a meteorite

The watch industry is currently at the peak of its development. Timepieces' manufacturers gladden the watchmaking art connoisseurs with new inventions every year, presenting models with principally new constructions, made of the most unbelievable materials, for their approval.

Meteorites usage has been widely applied during the recent decades.
A meteorite is an astronomical body, throwing off huge amounts of energy at landing on the Earth surface. It's supposed, that 5-6 tons of meteorites fall on Earth daily.

Antoine Preziuso watch company was one of the first to produce a watch with cosmic material. The first watch with a meteorite (the “Quarter Repeater”) was produced by it in 1991. The model's dial was made of the Gibeon meteorite.

 Gibeon is an iron meteorite, consisting of iron (91,7 %), nickel (7,7 %), cobalt (0,5 %), phosphorus (0,04 %) and also traces of gallium, germanium, iridium. It was discovered in 1836, had fallen down on Earth about 500 000 years ago. It's age is about 4,6 billion years. 26 tons of fragments were found.
Meteorites can be stony, iron-stone or iron in their structure. The most common are the stony meteorites (92,8 % of the falling). 1,5 % of the falling meteorites are iron-stone and 5,7 % – iron.
 In 2002 Antoine Preziuso company produced the “Meteor” tourbillon with a meteorite case, in 2004 the “Muonionalusta” tourbillon was created. A fragment of the Muonionalusta meteorite was used in its production.

Creating a meteorite case is a labor-consuming and highly technical work. First the meteorite solid block is cut into parts, then the bars are cut into case forms, after which the mechanical finishing starts, which consists of:
• carving holes and deepenings on the cases (a place of the crystal fixation, a hole for the crown and others);
• the case's polishing or oxidating (depending on its structure);
• the meteorite case's gilding or rhodium-coating (to protect the movement).

The rare Muonionalusta meteorite basically consists of ironstone, it's cut very hardly. After being polished and acid solution-treated, Widmanstätten patterns,  posturizing a crystalline pattern of crossing stripes with regular-shaped structure elements arrangement, appear on its polished sections. Widmanstätten patterns appear as a result of the intergrowth of multiple different forms of iron-nickel fusion crystals. This meteorite's Widmanstätten patterns are more subtle and interesting, than those of the majority of the rest iron meteorites.

From 2006 to 2010 3 more models with meteorites were produced – the “Next Full Moon”, the “Moonlight Necklace” and “The Art of Tourbillon Meteor”. The cases, the dials, the central hands and the buckles of these watch models are made of cosmic materials.