One of the greatest and most enjoyable high end watch competitions is the Gran Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve. The grand awards ceremony will be held at the Geneva Grande Theatre on November 18th, 2010.
To enter the competition, each candidate registered the watch by June 30th, 2010. The watches should be commercialized later than March 2009 for all categories (listed below), with the exception of the Complicated Watch Category which can submit watches from March 2008. The latest date of commercialization is December 2010.
Watch Categories are:
The Grand Price “L’Aiguille d’Or” (the “Golden Hand”) -which represents an overall excellence in all areas.
2009 winner of L’Aiguille d’Or -Lange Zeitwerk by A. Lange & Söhne
Special Jury Prize
Ladies’ Watch Prize
Men’s Watch Prize
Design and Concept Watch Prize
Jewellery Watch Prize
Complicated Watch Prize
Sports Watch Prize
Prize of « La Petite Aiguille » (the Small Hand) (Watch must be under 5000 Swiss Francs)
Best Watchmaker Prize (Most creative watchmaker of the year- no pre-registration needed for this title)
Public Prize (members of the public can vote for the winner via the internet or at the exhibition of preselected watches)
A jury comprised of individuals from museum curators, journalists, professionals, doctors, historians and magazine editors select ten watches from each category via the use of ballots with a scale of 1 through 10. A second round of voting shall be done in private and results will be validated on November 17th, 2010 and announced on November 18th, 2010.
The ten watches from each category shall go on display in multiple international locations commencing in Singapore at the end of this month, then Zurich at the beginning of October and finally in Geneva at the end of October. The three top winning watches in each category as well as the watch awarded the “L’Aiguille d’Or” Title will be displayed at the Salon International de l’Horlogerie de Prestige, Belles Montres from November 26th to 28th.
I will begin posting the ten pre-selected watches of each category- many I have admired and blogged about over the past year.
Greubel Forsey shines at the Gran Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve winning the Grand Prize of “L’Aiguille d’Or” (the “Golden Hand”) for its Greubel Forsey’s Double Tourbillon 30° Edition Historique in 5N red gold. It seems Greubel Forsey is scooping up awards for its remarkable timepieces. Last year the Quadruple Tourbillon was awarded "Best Complicated Watch" at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie Asia and this past month the Greubel Forsey' Double Tourbillon 30º Vision No. 2 brought in $ 325,641 at the Sotheby's Hong Kong Sale of Important Watches - the most money, at the auction, received for a single watch.
