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lot 15

lot 15

Richard Mille

RM 65-01 Automatic Split-seconds Chronograph

REFERENCE: RM65-01 Ti
CIRCA: 2022
CASE MATERIAL: Titanium
CASE DIMENSIONS: 50 x 44.5 mm
CONDITION: Unworn

Winning Bid: $ 310,000

Estimate: US$ 250,000 - 350,000

Lot Closed

Lot Details

STRAP: Rubber strap with Richard Mille titanium double deployant clasp
DIAL: Skeletonized
MOVEMENT: Automatic winding movement
CALIBRE: RMAC4
FUNCTIONS: Hours, Minutes, Seconds at 6, Date, Split-seconds Chronograph with 30-minute counter at 3, 12-hour counter at 9, Function Selector, Rapid winding and Variable-geometry rotor
BOX: Fitted presentation box and outer packaging
PAPERS: Activation warranty card, Warranty dated 2022, Manual

Please note this lot is the property of a private individual.

LOT ESSAY
A highly complex sports timepiece, a masterpiece of technical prowess designed for everyday use and for any situation, such is the latest execution of Richard Mille’s tireless quest for innovation, the new RM 65-01.

The culmination of some five years of development, this automatic split-seconds chronograph is the most complex timepiece ever to leave the Richard Mille workshops. This model fully embodies the brand’s technical approach thanks to the combination of several additional functions, a very specific architecture and an extremely high-end aesthetic. All in all, a fabulous challenge of mechanical watchmaking that called for patience, technicity and utter perseverance.

Richard Mille

Richard Mille is a Swiss watch company founded in 2001 by Dominique Guenat and Richard Mille, specializing in luxury watches. The brand made a name for itself in the luxury and ultra-luxury watch sectors thanks to its innovative materials and technology, joining the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie in 2007.

From early 1999, Richard Mille and Dominique Guenat drew up their plans and the basis for the Richard Mille brand, in partnership with Guenat S.A. Montres Valgine and APR&P (Audemars Piguet, Renaud et Papi). Defining the brand concept over the next two years, combining the world of cars, aeronautics, and sailing with the high-tech aspects of innovation, resistant materials, and accuracy, eventually designing the future Richard Mille watches and subjected them to reliability and precision testing.

The brand presented its first watch, the RM 001 Tourbillon at Baselworld in 2001, a manually wound mechanism fitted with a ribbed tonneau-shaped case that revealed the mechanism, the main features of the brand's visual identity. It included a tourbillon calibre, a power-reserve indicator, and a torque indicator, with a strap made from leather and the crystal from mineral glass, it had a water resistance of up to 50 meters.

The following year in 2002, Richard Mille presented the RM 002, a technological development, and the first watch in the history of watchmaking to feature a titanium baseplate. This was followed later that year by the RM 003, a dual time zone tourbillon, and by the RM 004 flyback chronograph in 2003. In 2005, the watch brand launched the RM 007, the first ladies' watch in the Richard Mille collection, and by the end of 2018, the brand presented Richard Mille's first creation entirely supervised by a woman, the RM 71-01 Automatic Tourbillon Talisman equipped with the new CRMT1 automatic caliber house.

A large portion of Richard Mille's inspiration comes from racing cars and the study of shock-resistance, the concrete applications of which have made it possible to improve the rigidity of the baseplate, reduce friction, and give the watches very high shock-resistance. The concepts and materials inspired by Formula 1, which provided the basis for the first Richard Mille watch (RM 001), are one of the cornerstones of the brand's philosophy.