Jacob & Co. Brings Back Its First Minute Repeater: The Palatial Flying Tourbillon Minute Repeater

Most watches are made to be looked at. For its first 28 years, Jacob & Co. made watches for exactly that purpose: big, bright, gem-set, and impossible to miss across a room. Then, in 2014, the Maison made one meant to be listened to. The Palatial Flying Tourbillon Minute Repeater brought sound into Jacob & Co.’s watchmaking through one of horology’s oldest and most demanding complications, and in the brand’s own words, it “opened an odyssey of sound.” The original sold out completely.

Twelve years later, that odyssey returns to its first note. As Jacob & Co. marks its 40th anniversary in 2026, the Palatial Flying Tourbillon Minute Repeater comes back in a new edition, powered by the new Caliber JCCM04 with a redesigned tourbillon cage and a silent centrifugal governor. It arrives in an 18K rose gold case with a red mineral crystal dial, and it is limited to 12 pieces, one for each year since the original was introduced. As anniversary gestures go, it is a neat one: rather than inventing something new to celebrate four decades, the Maison has gone back to the watch that changed what it makes.

A brief digression, because the 12 years in between matter. After the first Palatial, Jacob & Co.’s work with sound split into two paths. On one side sat chiming watches, which strike the time on demand with hammers on tuned gongs. On the other sat musical watches, which play a melody as a pinned cylinder plucks the tuned teeth of a comb, the same principle as a music box. At Baselworld 2018, the Maison presented two new minute repeaters: the Twin Turbo Furious, which paired twin triple-axis tourbillons with a decimal minute repeater striking hours, ten-minute intervals, and minutes, and the Astronomia Maestro, a carillon minute repeater with three gongs and three hammers in place of the usual two.

The music boxes had started a year earlier. At Baselworld 2017, Jacob & Co. introduced the Opera, which the brand describes as the first luxury timepiece to combine a triple-axis tourbillon movement with a two-comb, two-cylinder Swiss music box. The Opera Godfather followed in 2019, playing “The Godfather Love Theme” from Francis Ford Coppola’s film, and in 2020 the Opera Godfather Minute Repeater put both forms of sound in a single watch. This year, The Godfather II went further still, engineering two melodies onto one music-box cylinder for what the Maison calls the world’s only dual-melody musical timepiece. Every one of those watches traces back to the Palatial.

Introducing Caliber JCCM04

The Palatial brings together two of watchmaking’s most demanding complications in a single hand-wound movement: a minute repeater and a 60-second flying tourbillon. For the new edition, Jacob & Co. revisited the original movement rather than simply reissuing it. Caliber JCCM04 succeeds the original Caliber JCBM03, with refinements to its manufacturing and assembly. It is composed of 308 components and 29 jewels, measures 30mm across and 6.10mm thick, beats at 3 Hz (21,600 vph), and offers a 90-hour power reserve.

The repeater is activated by a slide integrated into the caseband. Pushing the slide arms the mechanism and supplies the energy for the striking sequence. Release it, and the watch chimes the time: a low tone for each hour, alternating high and low tones for the quarter hours, and a high tone for each remaining minute. Behind that small performance sits a mechanical memory of sorts. Stepped cams known as snails encode the hours, quarters, and minutes, while racks read their positions and determine how many strikes the hammers should deliver.

The notes come from two hammers striking two cathedral gongs. These are longer than conventional gongs and wrap around the movement to increase resonance, producing a longer, richer sound. Jacob & Co. says the gongs are formed, hardened, tuned, and fitted by hand, with the final adjustment made by ear — a reminder that, on a repeater, the last word belongs to the watchmaker’s ear. A centrifugal governor controls the cadence of the strikes, and for this edition it has been engineered to run silently, eliminating the faint whirring that can intrude on the sound of the gongs. In our view, that is the most meaningful upgrade in the new caliber: on a repeater, removing noise is as important as making it.

At 6 o’clock, the flying tourbillon completes one revolution every 60 seconds. Its cage has been redesigned, again alongside refinements to manufacturing and assembly. Turn the watch over and the sapphire crystal caseback shows the cathedral gongs, the hammers, and the architecture of the striking mechanism, so the repeater can be watched as well as heard. The bridges are finished with Côtes de Genève, hand-polished angles, and finely drawn edges.

A Dial Written in Music

The mechanics are serious, but the design is where the Palatial has some fun with its theme. The 18K rose gold case measures 43mm in diameter and 12.3mm thick, with a sapphire crystal and 30 meters of water resistance. The red mineral crystal dial sets the watch’s visual identity, finished with applied 18K rose gold hour markers that pick up the warmth of the case.

Look closer and the musical references start to appear. A brushed 18K rose gold G clef appliqué sits at 9 o’clock, the symbol that opens a musical score. The skeletonized hands take their shape from a metronome, the instrument used to keep tempo, which the Maison calls “a fitting reference for a watch whose governor keeps the tempo of its own chime.” It is a clever touch, and a quieter one than you might expect from Jacob & Co., letting the red and gold, and the open tourbillon below, do the talking.

The watch is worn on an alligator strap, red in the photographs, closed with an 18K rose gold pin buckle. The reference is PT500.40.NS.AC.ABALA, and production is capped at 12 pieces, the same number as the years since the first Palatial struck its first hour. Our pick for the detail that best sums up the project is that numbering: it turns a limited edition into a timeline.

The new Jacob & Co. Palatial Flying Tourbillon Minute Repeater is priced at $390,000. Twelve years ago, this was the watch that taught Jacob & Co. to be heard. For its 40th birthday, the Maison has tuned it again.

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Adrienne Faurote

Editor in Chief · Haute Time

As a former New Yorker, now a “Miamian,” Adrienne Faurote joined Haute Living in August of 2021. She currently serves as the Haute Media Group Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial platforms within the Haute Media Group while also maintaining her role as Fashion, Jewelry & Watch Director. Prior to her position at Haute Living, Faurote was the Market Editor at Marie Claire Magazine US, amassing over ten years in the industry, becoming an authoritative voice in all things fashion, jewelry, and watches.