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Hublot Unveils The World’s First Made of Scratch-Resistant Gold Watch

With the Baselworld Watch and Jewelry Show around the corner, the biggest and most luxurious watchmakers in the world are bringing out the big guns. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iconic Big Bang collection, the Swiss timepiece maker has revealed the Big Bang Unico Full Magic Gold. Not only is this a result of unique craftsmanship, but Hublot claims this particular unit contains the world’s only scratch-resistant gold.
Big Bang Unico Full Magic Gold 1 photo
Photo: Hublot
Hublot calls the Gold alloy “Magic Gold” and claims it’s a patented scratch-resistant 1,000 Vickers gold. Wait, V what? Vickers, a hardness test developed in 1921 by Robert L. Smith and George E. Sandland at Vickers Ltd. as an alternative to the Brinell method to measure the hardness of materials.

It certifies as 18K and developed exclusively by the luxury watch maker. “The fusion of materials is in Hublot’s DNA. Four years ago, Hublot created Magic Gold [...] Still today, we are the only brand to offer this material, whose hardness is close to 1,000 Vickers, more than twice that of ‘standard’ 18 carat gold, which only reaches 400 Vickers,” Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot said.

It took several months of fine tuning to manufacture the famous alloy and it’s the material used for the anniversary timepiece. According to Hublot, components made from this material are produced using a complex process: a boron carbide powder is pre- formed in moulds very similar in shape to that of the finished parts in this case the watch’s bezel. The powder is then hardened at a very high temperature, creating a rigid, porous structure.

A unique material designed in house

Last step implies the injection of 24K gold alloyed with 3% molten liquid gold under very high pressure with inert gas at a high temperature. This way the metal fills the ceramic pores and creates a “fusion” of the two to produce Magic Gold. Sounds quite impressive, right?

Getting back to the watch, the first timepieces made from the rare material were presented at BaselWorld 2012 in a very limited Big Bang Ferrari edition and now a new collection has been created.

The Big Bang Unico Full Magic Gold is limited to 250 pieces and each one has a Hublot Automatic flyback chronograph with column wheel and double clutch visible on the dial side. Still no word on the retail price but we have the slight feeling these puppies will definitely not come cheap.

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