Description
Armin Strom's Tribute is the entry point to the Biel manufacture — the slim, compact dress watch in the System 78 collection that exists because not everyone can buy a Resonance. The Tribute³ Au750 is the opposite of an entry point. It takes gold past the case and into the dial and the movement, and limits the result to eight pieces at CHF 69,000.
Rose gold here is not a finish. The case is 18k rose gold, the dial plate and its off-centred sub-dial are solid rose gold, the finger bridge over the barrel is rose gold, the three-quarter bridge on the back is rose gold, and all three bridges carry a different hand-executed guilloché pattern. An earlier rose-gold Tribute existed, but it used gold only for the case.
The reference is RG26-TRI.AU, and the watch runs on the in-house hand-wound AMW21 with a 100-hour power reserve from a single motor barrel.
Design
The case stays true to the Tribute's dress-watch brief: 38 mm across, 44.35 mm lug to lug and 9.38 mm thick, brushed and polished 18k rose gold, with the crown at 2 o'clock, the signature "lip" at 6 and the family's angular lugs. Sapphire with anti-reflective treatment front and back; the screw-in caseback mixes rose gold and sapphire. Water resistance is 50 m.
The dial keeps the asymmetric Armin Strom layout — an off-centred time disc with the barrel intersecting it from below, held by a rounded, hand-bevelled finger bridge. Two guilloché patterns do the work: a radiating sunburst on the sub-dial, a barleycorn (grain d'orge) ground across the dial plate. Everything except the screws, the sink, the chapter ring, the hands and the logo is rose gold. This is also the first Tribute with Breguet-style hands, made in grey PVD-coated steel, and the grey frosted chapter ring with its peripheral railway track carries black Roman numerals — both unusually classical choices for this brand. Round the back, the rose-gold three-quarter bridge is decorated with clous de Paris hobnail guilloché and hand-bevelled edges, over the 3.5 Hz balance. It comes on an 18 mm grey nubuck strap with grey stitching and a rose-gold pin buckle.
Specifications
- Reference: RG26-TRI.AU
- Case diameter: 38 mm
- Lug-to-lug: 44.35 mm
- Case thickness: 9.38 mm
- Case material: 18k rose gold, brushed and polished
- Crystal: sapphire with anti-reflective treatment, front and back
- Caseback: screw-in, 18k rose gold and sapphire crystal
- Water resistance: 5 atm (50 m)
- Dial: solid rose gold; off-centred sub-dial with sunburst guilloché, dial plate with barleycorn guilloché; grey frosted chapter ring with black Roman numerals; grey PVD-coated Breguet-style hands
- Movement: Armin Strom manufacture calibre AMW21, in-house, manual-winding
- Movement dimensions: 33.5 mm x 4.2 mm, 21 jewels
- Frequency: 25,200 vph (3.5 Hz)
- Power reserve: 100 hours, from a single motor barrel
- Functions: hours, minutes, seconds
- Finishing: 18k rose gold finger bridges, rose-gold three-quarter bridge with clous de Paris guilloché and hand-bevelled edges, frosting, circular graining, black-polished screws; movement assembled twice
- Strap: grey nubuck leather (18 mm) with grey stitching, 18k rose-gold pin buckle
- Limited edition: 8 pieces
- Price: CHF 69,000
- Warranty: five years
What's Exciting
The motor barrel is the quiet headline. Instead of the mainspring's outer end driving the barrel drum, the arbor winds the spring inside a fixed drum — a reversed architecture that saves space and cuts friction, and it is how Armin Strom gets 100 hours out of one barrel in a movement only 4.2 mm thick. Most 100-hour watches reach that number with two or three barrels and pay for it in height. This one does not.
The gold is the louder story and, unusually, it does not read as ostentation. Because the dial plate, the sub-dial and the bridges are all the same rose gold, the watch has an almost monochrome quality; the three guilloché patterns, not colour contrast, are what create depth. The grey PVD Breguet hands and the frosted grey chapter ring are the restraint that keeps it from tipping over, and they are a real departure for a brand whose signature is open, industrial asymmetry. Eight pieces at CHF 69,000 is a lot of money for a time-only watch — but it buys a solid-gold movement architecture, three hand-guilloché surfaces, and a manufacture that makes 97 percent of its components itself.
History
Armin Strom, based in Biel, built its reputation on resonance — two independent regulating systems coupled by a patented clutch spring so they synchronise each other, first shown in the Mirrored Force Resonance of 2016 and since extended to dual-time and GMT variants. That work made the brand one of the most technically credible of the modern Swiss independents, and also one of the most expensive.
The System 78 collection was the answer to that: a line sharing scaled components across models like the Gravity Equal Force, the Orbit and the Tribute, bringing the manufacture's architecture into reach. The first Tribute 1 arrived in steel in 2021, and the family has since become the brand's canvas for dial crafts — California dials, guilloché, fumé, grattage and tremblage. The Tribute³ Au750 is the most decorated and most expensive of them, and the smallest edition.
