Jacob & Co. has dropped a $380 USD music box tourbillon to mark the 50th Anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
The Jacob & Co Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary certainly isn’t light on talking points with the full collector’s set including the watch, a red rose pen from Montegrappa and an engraved crystal decanter.
The vast 49mm watch houses the 634-component calibre JCMF04 movement which rotates inside the case and packs in a triple-axis flying tourbillon, a music box complication that plays Nino Rota’s ‘The Godfather’ theme using 120 pins against two combs and an enamel red rose at its centre.
“The Godfather is not just a great movie because of the way it was shot and directed,” says Benjamin Arabov, Jacob & Co. CEO. “It also contains some of the greatest scenes and dialogue in movie history.”
The watch illustrates that sentiment both inside and outside the case. The twin rose gold barrels that power the music box complication are engraved with the movie’s most memorable quotes – including “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” – on the exterior, bringing new lines of dialogue to the fore as they rotate.
The 18K grey gold caseband of the watch also features 13 photo-realistic scenes from the film in narrative order engraved over 30 hours using medical-grade ‘femtolaser’ technology, a process which allows for 256 tones within the metal.
The Godfather is the favourite film of Jacob & Co founder, Jacob Arabo, and was the first film he watched after moving to the US from Uzbekistan at the age of 14.
Francis Ford Coppola is widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s greatest directors, and while he has created many great works of cinematic art, none stand as tall in popular consciousness as The Godfather. This multi-award-winning crime family masterpiece turns 50 this year, and Jacob & Co is in Sicily, celebrating the milestone in style.
When we say style, of course, we mean the Jacob & Co Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary , a limited edition of 50 pieces (naturally). This watch not only offers the combination of technical virtuosity and musical magic that we expect from the Opera, but it literally enshrines iconic moments from the movie on the case.
The 49mm, white gold case, might not have quite the scale as the silver screen, but on this watch, it serves as a sufficient backdrop for some emblematic scenes. The straight flanks of the case have been etched with a high-intensity, high-precision femtolaser technology that inscribes key moments from the film into the metal, with unparalleled clarity and precision, so every time you check the time you can look down at the patrician-like profile of Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone.
Of course, this unique case decoration is only one of the outstanding elements of the Opera. The other big party trick is, of course, the music. The open dial is dominated by two musical barrels, which power the music box mechanism, programmed to play the Godfather’s Main Theme. The barrels themselves are as aesthetic as they are functional, the rose gold cylinders are engraved with iconic quotes from the film. On top of that, the dial features the film’s marionette-like logo, the Jacob & Co Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary appellation and Don Corleone’s red rose, sculpted in the centre of the dial.