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Lot Essay
'I am so used to wearing my RM053, it now feels like part of my arm. It is light and comfortable, and it feels strange not to wear it. It would be like playing without a helmet or a mallet. It’s rare to see a watch on the polo field as this is an extreme sport. Other players don’t wear them as they are too delicate. Normally, I am the only guy with a watch during a match.' - Pablo MacDonough in an interview with Maria Doulton for ‘The Jewellery Editor’, June 2015.
With an incredible presence on the wrist, this awesome futuristic-looking black DLC-coated titanium carbide ‘armoured’ Tourbillon RM053 Pablo MacDonough is a unique piece in addition to the regular production series, unveiled in 2012, of which only 15 were ever made. A highly sophisticated and precise tourbillon, the RM053 was created exclusively to be worn whilst playing polo and to withstand the incredible shocks encountered during a match. For ease of reading the time during play, both the movement and time display windows are tilted at a 30˚ angle. This angled view is perfect to be seen from the rider’s saddle.
Pablo MacDonough, the famous Argentine polo player, was Number One in the World Polo Tour Ranking in 2010. In 2011, Richard Mille approached him, and the next year MacDonough joined the Richard Mille Polo Team. Known as the ‘king of sports’, polo is possibly one of the toughest sports that any wristwatch, let alone a tourbillon wristwatch could possibly be subjected to, the violent turns and swings exerting physical forces and shocks far greater than in any other sport. With this in mind, Richard Mille in collaboration with Pablo MacDonough developed the RM053. Its development presented a formidable challenge that was fundamentally different to any of the previous challenges that Mille’s engineers had faced, which had primarily been focused upon resisting the forces of gravity.
For the RM053, Richard Mille developed an idea for a totally new ‘armoured’ case design in titanium carbide, almost indestructible, engineered to cope with the extreme shocks to be expected during a polo match. The design features two raised arcs with two viewing windows, on the left for the seconds mounted on the tourbillon carriage, on the right for the hours and minutes. The skeletonised grade 5 titanium baseplate and the bridges of the movement, at the time Richard Mille's smallest at 32.55mm x 30.80mm x 12.70mm, were subjected to multiple shock-resistance tests via an adapted pendulum-impact testing machine, equipped with a steel ball that impacted the case and movement with forces of up to an incredible 5'000 G’s, simulating being struck with perhaps flying mallets or heavy polo balls travelling at around 200km per hour. To further mitigate external forces, the movement itself is both ultra lightweight and tightly integrated, therefore less susceptible to the centrifugal and centripetal forces generated during a polo match. The going barrel powering the movement makes a full rotation in 6 hours instead of the usual 7.5 hours in order to provide more consistent power through the winding cycle.
This world-class Richard Mille RM053 unique piece is a captivating masterpiece in every sense of the word, without doubt one of the most coveted and exclusive among Richard Mille’s extraordinary timepieces.
With an incredible presence on the wrist, this awesome futuristic-looking black DLC-coated titanium carbide ‘armoured’ Tourbillon RM053 Pablo MacDonough is a unique piece in addition to the regular production series, unveiled in 2012, of which only 15 were ever made. A highly sophisticated and precise tourbillon, the RM053 was created exclusively to be worn whilst playing polo and to withstand the incredible shocks encountered during a match. For ease of reading the time during play, both the movement and time display windows are tilted at a 30˚ angle. This angled view is perfect to be seen from the rider’s saddle.
Pablo MacDonough, the famous Argentine polo player, was Number One in the World Polo Tour Ranking in 2010. In 2011, Richard Mille approached him, and the next year MacDonough joined the Richard Mille Polo Team. Known as the ‘king of sports’, polo is possibly one of the toughest sports that any wristwatch, let alone a tourbillon wristwatch could possibly be subjected to, the violent turns and swings exerting physical forces and shocks far greater than in any other sport. With this in mind, Richard Mille in collaboration with Pablo MacDonough developed the RM053. Its development presented a formidable challenge that was fundamentally different to any of the previous challenges that Mille’s engineers had faced, which had primarily been focused upon resisting the forces of gravity.
For the RM053, Richard Mille developed an idea for a totally new ‘armoured’ case design in titanium carbide, almost indestructible, engineered to cope with the extreme shocks to be expected during a polo match. The design features two raised arcs with two viewing windows, on the left for the seconds mounted on the tourbillon carriage, on the right for the hours and minutes. The skeletonised grade 5 titanium baseplate and the bridges of the movement, at the time Richard Mille's smallest at 32.55mm x 30.80mm x 12.70mm, were subjected to multiple shock-resistance tests via an adapted pendulum-impact testing machine, equipped with a steel ball that impacted the case and movement with forces of up to an incredible 5'000 G’s, simulating being struck with perhaps flying mallets or heavy polo balls travelling at around 200km per hour. To further mitigate external forces, the movement itself is both ultra lightweight and tightly integrated, therefore less susceptible to the centrifugal and centripetal forces generated during a polo match. The going barrel powering the movement makes a full rotation in 6 hours instead of the usual 7.5 hours in order to provide more consistent power through the winding cycle.
This world-class Richard Mille RM053 unique piece is a captivating masterpiece in every sense of the word, without doubt one of the most coveted and exclusive among Richard Mille’s extraordinary timepieces.