Biver AB

Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver answer their collectors with a first watch in steel: a slim 38mm hand-winder with an onyx dial inlaid in gold and a new movement made from solid white gold.

Steel, By Request

Biver collectors kept asking for a watch they could wear every day without babying precious metal. Rather than drop the Automatique into a steel case, the father and son team started over. The AB measures 38mm across and 9.8mm thick, with the house's faceted lugs, a reworked bezel that makes it wear smaller still, and 80 meters of water resistance.

Stone Meets Gold

The dial is cut from black onyx with 2N gold set right into the stone, framed by chamfered gold levels and hand-faceted gold hands. Up at twelve, a small gold pin slides across an aperture as you wind, showing how much of the reserve is left. Biver's articulated bracelet arrives in steel for the first time, now with a patented micro-adjust you work with two small push buttons.

A Movement Built in Gold

Inside sits the JCB-004, a new hand-wound calibre developed with Le Cercle des Horlogers and reserved for Biver. Its plates and bridges are made from PD210, a palladium-rich white gold that never tarnishes, and twin barrels in series deliver more than 120 hours of running time. One watchmaker builds each AB from start to finish. It costs CHF 68,000 (about $80,000), runs in open production, and comes to the US exclusively through Material Good.