Before we get into this unique-looking watch, a big shoutout to A Collected Man for their article titled Three Watchmakers Unfinished Watches. Their article covers some really incredible pieces that, as the title suggests, went unfinished. The original article they wrote can be found here.

Do you know when you are scrolling through Instagram, not really paying too much attention, and then THAT watch jumps out at you? This watch, with a very interesting looking dial and beautiful finishing did just that. The watch in question was created by Francois-Paul Journe, of the very famous brand FP Journe, in the 90’s. It is such a striking watch that tells the tail of many independent watchmakers and their adventurous ideas they come up with.

Back in the 1990’s, Francois-Paul Journe was working on creating watch movements for large established brands as an independent watchmaker. As one could imagine, he also had some free time to create some unique pieces for watch collectors who approached him. In 1997, a collector from Paris, Jean Aube, commissioned Francois-Paul to create a wandering hours watch. This was not a complication one saw very often, but Journe obliged and create an extremely unique watch called the Carpe Diem.

The watch has a gold case, with an extremely striking dial that has a whole in the middle of it where one can see the beautiful flying balance wheel beat away. The dial has an inner disk with the wondering hours displayed in a window and a minute track around the outside of the watch. The dial is signed with ‘CarpeDiem’, hence the name, and at 6 o’clock one can see Journes’ initials; FPJ. When you flip the watch over, there is beautifully constructed movement that is very compact. There is also a micro-rotor that is signed ‘Journe - 1997’, the manufacture and year it was built.

With such a striking watch design, the watch caught the attention of some other companies. Cartier expressed interest in developing a similar watch as the Carpe Diem. The project was abandoned however, so the movements that Journe had created went into storage. It was Antiquorum who asked Journe to produce special pieces for their 30th anniversary charity auction using the same design as the Carpe Diem which brought the design to life. Three pieces were made, one in rose gold, white gold and yellow gold which are known as the original Vagabondage watches. Journe later released the Vagabondage 1 under his own name, although he never signed the dial of these watches. Thus began an extremely important line of watches for Journe and the history of watchmaking.

The original Carpe Diem is not only a special looking watch from a design perspective, but an important watch for the history of watchmaking.

Enjoy!