Description
The Chronomètre Ferdinand Berthoud FB 3SPC.2-1 is, quietly, one of the most serious watches of the year. Ferdinand Berthoud is the haute-horlogerie house revived in 2015 by Chopard co-president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele as an homage to the 18th-century marine-chronometer maker of the same name, and the FB 3SPC is its most classically shaped chronometer — a round, time-only watch whose apparent simplicity hides an obsessive focus on rate accuracy.
This new reference, FB 3SPC.2-1, is a warm, monochromatic execution: an 18-carat 5N rose-gold case married to a movement whose visible bridges are left in natural German silver, so metal and mechanism read as a single, historically resonant material. It was officially unveiled at the opening of Art in Time Tokyo, is a non-limited edition, and completes the collection alongside the existing white-gold FB 3SPC.1.
Design
The case measures 42.3mm in diameter and a restrained 9.43mm thick, built from 57 parts in ethical 18k 5N rose gold, with a large 8.5mm crown for easy hand-winding. Its round, lightly retro silhouette is punctuated by the brand's signature: a rectangular sapphire "porthole" set into the left case flank at 9 o'clock, framing the cylindrical balance spring as it breathes.
The openworked dial is the movement itself. All visible elements are treated in sandblasted nickel silver (maillechort, or German silver), with gilded gear trains and a peripheral inner bezel ring and small-seconds sub-dial in velvet-finished beige brass. Hours and minutes are read via polished, skeletonised, open-tipped hands in 18k gold with a blue CVD treatment — a blue echoed on the seconds hand, power-reserve indicator and several screws. The mostly matte surfaces make the hand-polished bevels sing.
Specifications
- Reference: FB 3SPC.2-1
- Case diameter: 42.3mm
- Case thickness: 9.43mm
- Case: 57-part construction in ethical 18-carat 5N rose gold; 8.5mm crown
- Crystal: glareproofed domed sapphire; rectangular sapphire porthole on the left flank at 9 o'clock
- Caseback: sapphire exhibition
- Water resistance: 30m
- Dial: openworked; sandblasted nickel-silver bridges, gilded gear trains; velvet-finished beige-brass inner bezel ring and small-seconds sub-dial; blue-CVD 18k gold hands
- Movement: calibre FB-SPC, in-house, hand-wound, COSC chronometer-certified
- Movement dimensions: 34mm x 6.84mm; 230 components; 47 jewels
- Regulating organ: cylindrical balance spring with hand-formed Berthoud terminal curves; variable-inertia balance; Swiss lever escapement; stop-seconds
- Frequency: 21,600 vph (3 Hz)
- Power reserve: 72 hours (single large barrel)
- Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds, power reserve
- Strap: blue alligator; 18k rose-gold pin buckle; 18k rose-gold folding clasp (length-adjustable blade on request)
- Availability: non-limited edition
- Price: upon request (approx. CHF 160,000)
What's Exciting
This is chronometry with nothing hidden. The FB 3SPC's claim to fame — the combination of a variable-inertia balance and a cylindrical balance spring with Berthoud's own terminal curves — is not decoration; it is the reason the calibre earns its COSC certificate, and it is why the original FB 3SPC won the Chronometry prize at GPHG 2023. The side porthole exists precisely so that you can watch that cylindrical hairspring work. Where most openworked watches skeletonise for spectacle, this one openworks to show the physics. The rose-gold-on-German-silver palette is the most understated the FB 3SPC has ever looked, which for a watch this technically loud is exactly the point. At roughly CHF 160,000 it is priced for a tiny audience, but as a piece of pure chronometric watchmaking it has almost no direct rival short of a tourbillon.
History
Ferdinand Berthoud (1727–1807) was one of the towering figures of precision timekeeping, a Swiss-born horologist who became Horloger-Mécanicien du Roi et de la Marine in France and built marine chronometers that helped ships find longitude at sea. Scheufele resurrected the name in 2015 with the Chronomètre FB1, a tourbillon with fusée-and-chain, followed by the FB2 and then the FB 3SPC in 2022 — a deliberately more classical, round chronometer that put chronometry, not complication, at the centre. Successive editions have appeared in white and pink gold, black, titanium and platinum; this rose-gold FB 3SPC.2-1, launched at Art in Time Tokyo, is the warmest and most restrained interpretation yet.
