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The Billionaire Timeless Treasure Watch Is a $20 Million Exercise in Showing Off

There are timepieces, and then there’s any watch by Jacob & Co., the famed Swiss watchmaker that artfully combines watchmaking with high-end jewelry to create memorable and highly collectible pieces. But not a single one of these watches holds a candle to the Billionaire.
The Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricing 23 photos
Photo: Jacob & Co. (Composite)
The Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricingThe Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricing
The Billionaire Watch is the ultimate exercise in showing off. It’s so outrageous and ostentatious that it has even earned criticism of being classless and crass, but it’s also completely unashamed and unapologetic. The Billionaire Watch is, beyond the ultimate status symbol, an exercise in proving impossible is not a word Jacob & Co. is familiar with.

The Billionaire Watch was introduced as a one-off in 2015, but the idea proved so popular that Jacob releases one each year, further developing and improving the concept. With a name like that and a price tag that earns said moniker, famous owners of such a timepiece include boxing champ Floyd Mayweather and rapper DJ Khaled, both known for their love of flashy, diamond-heavy timepieces. Mayweather’s model came with a price tag of $18 million and was, until this week, the most expensive Billionaire Watch released.

Enter the Billionaire Timeless Treasure, the latest Billionaire Watch unveiled by Jacob & Co. at the Watches & Wonders exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland. It is not just the most expensive Billionaire piece ever produced, but also one of the most expensive watches ever, in the entire world, and a watchmaking achievement of unprecedented proportions. It’s impressive both visually and from a watchmaking perspective, with the latter allowing Jacob & Co. to describe it as a work of art. A work of art they first started working on in 2017.

The Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricing
Photo: Jacob & Co.
First things first, like most Jacob & Co. timepieces or perhaps more so than any other, the Billionaire Watch is flashy. It’s big, it’s sparkly, and it’s covered in diamonds so that it resembles more a piece of jewelry than a time-telling device. The Billionaire Timeless Treasure is all these things, but is even more striking visually because it’s also the first Billionaire piece to use yellow diamonds instead of the standard white stone.

That’s a lot of words to say that it’s ok if you’re not exactly feeling it or the idea behind it. But for Jacob & Co., the Billionaire piece is more than a way of helping the rich show off their wealth: it’s a dare to themselves, to create that one watch that others wouldn’t be able to.

Yellow diamonds are rarer and, because of it, more expensive than white diamonds. This watch is covered in them, from the bracelet to the dial, for a total of 482, weighing 216. 89 carats: 425 of these diamonds are Asscher-cut yellow diamonds, while 57 are baguette-cut, on the dial. For contrast and improved color composition, Jacob & Co. added 79 baguette-cut tsavorites, which are also very rare gems, desirable for their ability to provide higher brilliance than emeralds.

The Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricing
Photo: Jacob & Co.
Because yellow diamonds are so rare, it took a team of 25 people led by Seraina Wicht, the head of the gemology watch production at Jacob & Co., more than 2 and a half years just to source the stones. They had to be the right size for the cut, but they also had to be the right color, which was either Fancy Vivid Yellow or Fancy Intense Yellow.

Ultimately, the position of a stone onto the gold lattice bracelet was determined by its color, so if a larger piece had to be cut down to half because of its color, it was. This resulted in a considerable waste of matter: Wicht explains that most stones had at least twice their current carat weight when she started cutting, and that’s also because the Asscher cut requires a larger stone to begin with. For reference, the 216.89-carat weight came from 880 carats in the rough.

This Billionaire timepiece is the first one in the series to use the very challenging Asscher cut. Previous iterations used white diamonds, either with a classic emerald cut or the slightly more difficult Ashoka. So this one isn’t just the first color Billionaire Watch, but also the first to employ the 57-faceted Asscher cut.

The Billionaire Timeless Treasure watch is a world first in many ways, including pricing
Photo: Jacob & Co.
Powered by the exclusive, skeleton Jacob & Co. Manual Winding JCAM39 caliber, the Billionaire Timeless Treasure offers a good look at the movement through the sapphire caseback. Also here you’ll find the only clue as to how seriously this art piece takes itself: the word “Billionaire” is engraved on the caseback, but the “O” has been replaced by a smiley face.

There’s nothing funny about the price tag on the Billionaire Timeless Treasure, though. Offered as a one-off, the timepiece retails for $20 million. Somehow, given how expensive it is and especially considering its unique, not-for-the-faint-of-heart style, you can almost imagine Mayweather is already burning up the phone lines to get it.

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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