Everyone can claim they own a piece of meteorite, but not everyone can claim theirs can tell time. Well, this one can. Behold the Bell & Ross BR-X5 Meteorite. This timepiece combines Swiss manufacture watchmaking with the rarity of a genuine Muonionalusta meteorite dial, which kind of makes it partially hail from space. Trust me. This is going to make even the Moonswatch sound boring.
The meteorite was discovered in northern Sweden in 1906 and is estimated to be around 4.5 billion years old. Its distinctive crisscrossing Widmanstätten pattern formed through extremely slow cooling, giving each dial a different appearance. Nature handled the decoration. Admittedly, its turnaround time was terrible.
Bell & Ross machines the dial directly from solid meteorite, without a brass backing. Rhodium-plated indices and skeletonized hands carry blue-glowing Super-LumiNova, so you can read the time after dark instead of merely admiring an expensive piece of space debris.
Housing it is a 41 mm satin-finished and polished steel case measuring 12.8 mm thick. The BR-X5’s multilayer sandwich construction and four exposed screws remain, along with an anti-reflective sapphire crystal, sapphire caseback, screw-down crown, and 100-meter (328-foot) water resistance.
Inside is the COSC-certified automatic BR-CAL.323 manufacture movement, offering approximately 70 hours of power reserve. A large date window sits at 3 o’clock, opposite the power-reserve indicator at 9. There’s also a five-year warranty. The meteorite has already demonstrated considerably better longevity, but fair enough.
Limited to 250 pieces, the Bell & Ross BR-X5 Meteorite costs US$9,200 on a black rubber strap or US$9,700 on a steel bracelet. Deliveries are listed for mid-September. A very long journey from space to Sweden to your wrist, only to remind you that you’re late for lunch.
Images: Bell & Ross.
