7 Zany Timepieces From the World's Most Exclusive Watch Show

There are complicated watches and then there’s this insanity. The Celestia has 23 complications—distinct mechanical functions other than showing the hours, minutes, and seconds—all focused around astronomy. There’s a tide indicator with a tiny little model of the Earth, hands for showing solar time vs. sidereal time (star time), sunrise and sunset trackers, and even a translucent sapphire crystal star chart on the back side. Each is made to order and the functions are calibrated for exactly where the wearer lives. Craziest of all? This thing is only 45mm across, meaning it’s actually a wearable size. This watch costs approximately $1 million—Vacheron won’t give an exact price, and it's available only by special order. Take a closer look at all the complications at Hodinkee.

Comprised of densely packed carbon nanotubes, Vantablack is the blackest material ever made by human beings. Watchmaker MCT teamed up with artist Anish Kapoor (who has exclusive artistic rights to use the material) and created this special edition of the Sequential One watch. The inside back of the watch is coated in Vantablack, making the mechanical movement look like it’s floating above a bottomless pit. It’s actually kind of disorienting if you stare into those corners for too long. $95,000.

For over 100 years, Cartier has been making so-called “mystery” clocks, which use a secret, proprietary system to make it look like the hands are floating in the middle of an empty space. What’s turning them, you ask? It essentially works with gears and wheels around the edges, with the hands mounted on transparent discs. Here, Cartier has miniaturized the system and then skeletonized the section around the dial itself, showing off some of the 192 mechanical components—but not those final, secret ones. $75,000.

Inside the black titanium case, behind the black and red dial, there’s a really serious engine lurking, with two separate mechanical halves. The first is rather simple and it’s balance (the little wheel and spring system that actually keeps the time) beats at 4 Hz and tells you the time. The second half’s though beats at a whopping 50 Hz and lets you use the chronograph (stopwatch) function to time things down to 1/1000th of a second, all using one large button at the top of the cast to start, stop, and reset the mechanism. When you stop it, the little hand in that red gauge at 12 o’clock snaps into position instantly to read out the last 1/1000th. Now you better get started working on that reaction time. 175,000 Euro. (No US pricing yet.)

MB&F has made watches that look like fighter jets, '70s sports cars, and space ships. This one is inspired by a jellyfish that stung founder Max Büsser’s wife, but it looks more like something from Ridley Scott’s lost movie, Jacques Cousteau: Alien Hunter. The large sapphire bubble on top holds a spinning tourbillon that keeps the time on the concentric rings below, all surrounded by a pseudo diver’s bezel that reminds one of Saturn. Despite being a little tough to wear for most people, this is a watch with a sense of humor, meant to put a smile on your face every time you look at it. Works for me. $97,150 (titanium), $116,950 (red gold). Find more details at Hodinkee.