Jacob & Co. Palatial Flying Tourbillon Minute Repeater: The Return of the First Note

Jacob & Co.’s first watch built to be heard is back. For the brand’s 40th anniversary in 2026, the Palatial Flying Tourbillon Minute Repeater returns in 18K rose gold with a red dial, a new movement and a price of USD 390,000. Only 12 will be made, one for each year since the original arrived in 2014.

That original sold out completely. Before it, Jacob & Co. made watches to be looked at. The 2014 Palatial was the first one meant to be listened to, and it started a run of chiming and musical watches that has defined much of the brand’s high-complication work since.

Twelve years of sound

Since 2014, Jacob & Co.’s sound watches have followed two paths. Chiming watches, like the minute repeater, strike the time on demand with hammers hitting tuned gongs. Musical watches play a melody, with a pinned cylinder plucking the tuned teeth of a comb, the same principle as a music box.

The musical side came first. At Baselworld 2017, the brand launched the Opera, the first luxury watch to pair a triple-axis tourbillon with a two-comb, two-cylinder Swiss music box. A year later at Baselworld 2018, two new minute repeaters arrived. The Twin Turbo Furious combined twin triple-axis tourbillons with a decimal minute repeater that strikes hours, ten-minute intervals and minutes. The Astronomia Maestro brought a carillon minute repeater, using three gongs and three hammers instead of the usual two.

In 2019, the Opera Godfather followed, with a music box playing “The Godfather Love Theme.” Then in 2020, the Opera Godfather Minute Repeater merged both paths, putting a minute repeater, a triple-axis tourbillon and a music box in one watch. Earlier in 2026, The Godfather II fit two melodies onto a single music-box cylinder, which the brand bills as the world’s only dual-melody musical timepiece.

Now the story comes full circle, back to the watch that started it.

Inside Caliber JCCM04

The new hand-wound Caliber JCCM04 replaces the original JCBM03. It carries two major complications: a minute repeater and a 60-second flying tourbillon. Jacob & Co. reworked how the movement is manufactured and assembled, and made two headline changes.

The first is a silent governor. A centrifugal governor sets the pace of the chime, and on this edition it runs silently, so its own noise no longer competes with the gongs. The second is a redesigned tourbillon cage. The flying tourbillon sits at 6 o’clock and turns once a minute.

How the repeater works

You trigger it with a slide built into the side of the case. Pushing the slide arms the mechanism and stores the energy for the strike. When you let go, the watch chimes the time: a low note for each hour, a high-low pair for each quarter hour, then a high note for each remaining minute. So 3:52 would sound as three lows, three high-low pairs, then seven highs. Stepped cams called snails hold the hours, quarters and minutes, and racks read them to count out the strikes.

The gongs

Two hammers strike two cathedral gongs. These are longer than standard gongs and wrap around the movement, which gives more resonance and a longer, fuller note. Each gong is formed, hardened, tuned and fitted by hand, with the final tuning done by ear.

The gongs, hammers and striking works are all visible through the sapphire caseback. The movement is finished with Côtes de Genève, hand-polished angles and drawn edges.

By the numbers

The movement has 308 components and 29 jewels, runs at 3 Hz (21,600 vph) and holds 90 hours of power reserve. It measures 30mm wide and 6.10mm thick.

A dial that nods to music

The red mineral crystal dial sets the tone, with applied 18K rose gold hour markers. Two small details tie it back to sound. At 9 o’clock sits a brushed 18K rose gold G clef, the symbol that opens a musical score. The skeletonized hands are shaped like a metronome, the instrument that keeps tempo, which is exactly what the governor does for the chime.

The case is 43mm across and 12.3mm thick, in 18K rose gold, and water resistant to 30m. It comes on an alligator strap with a rose gold pin buckle.