quattro
[Moderator]
6314
Vacheron Constantin ref. 6448
Dating from 1961, the Minute Repeater ref. 6448, powered by manual cal. 13''', was Vacheron Constantin's last vintage minute repeater before the reintroduction of this complication only 30 years later with the caliber 1755 and reference 30010 (if I'm not mistaken).
It was made in only 3 unique examples (case dimensions: 36.5 x 7.38 mm):
- white gold (high polish finishing) with baton indexes
- white gold (high polish finishing) with diamond indexes
- platinum (brushed finishing) with diamond indexes
As the platinum variant is coming to the market for the first time this weekend (as lot 57 in Phillips' Geneva Watch Auction: XXI), I thought it would be interesting to show the three examples together.
Best, Emmanuel
A/ WHITE GOLD & BATON INDEXES (the author of the wrist shots below, Vinontre, is a member of our site, but his last visit dates back to November 2018 - this watch was sold as lot 109 at Christie's Important Watches auction on 14 May 2012 - you can hear the watch chime here)
credit: @vinontre (wrist shots) & hodinkee
Vacheron Constantin ref. 6448
Dating from 1961 , the Minute Repeater ref. 6448 , powered by manual cal. 13''', was Vacheron Constantin 's last vintage minute repeater before the reintroduction of this complication only 30 years later with the caliber 1755 and reference 30010 (if I'm n...
I completely agree with you!
Elegant with a strong personality with these straight angular lugs. Best, Emmanuel
Beautiful.
I actually like the white gold with diamond indexes best! Thanks again for the excellent pictorial. Cheers, Filip
Thank you, Filip.
For me, the first one here: the baton indexes fit the austere aesthetic. But the diamond indexes bring a bit of class too, I agree. Cheers, Emmanuel
There are only three😳
What beautiful references. I love how simple yet chic they are.
I've read 36 or 36.5mm diameter
and 7.3 or 7.38 thickness. I included the official links in the post: so you can easily check for yourself. Best, Emmanuel
alas, my source on that quite apparently bad datapoint is lost and anyway I defer to the Master.
BTW, FWIW Christie's called it a 13'''3/4 movement back in 2012 www.christies.com
I think it means
13,75 lignes (= 31,02 mm) and that would be the diameter of the caliber. Obviously the measurement indications relative to this watch are not very accurate as they differ from one source to the other.
"RA" means "Remontoir Ancre" or stem-wound with lever escapement.
So it's a description of the type of caliber. And 13''' means 13 "lignes", which is a unit of measurement for watch movements (not a reference number). 1 Ligne=2.25583 mm (1 mm=0.4433 lignes). So 13''' (13 lignes) means that the movement is 29,33 mm in di...
