For its tenth anniversary, Sartory-Billard unveils the SB10. A watch born from a project once considered impossible: the SB08.
Presented in 2024, this concept watch explored an extreme architecture, combining multi-sapphire construction, advanced complications, and a radical vision of time display: a wide aperture for the hours, a fluid reading of the minutes, and a central surface entirely freed from the traditional dial.
Its development would have required an investment exceeding one million euros. It could not exist. And yet, its essential idea endured: to offer a clear, almost poetic reading of time, grounded in material.
“I couldn’t let go of what defined the soul of the SB08,” explains Armand Billard. “That wide hour aperture, that fluid minute display, and above all that liberated surface – a true blank page for creativity.”
The SB10 is that idea made possible – not a simplification, but a distillation, faithful to the Sartory-Billard DNA.
Jumping hour watches offer a unique mechanical spectacle: an instantaneous, sharp, almost theatrical change. But they are often difficult to read, with small apertures and limited visibility.
The SB10 takes a different approach. At six o’clock, a large aperture reveals the hour on a sapphire disc. This opening has been deliberately enlarged to provide immediate legibility—a conscious, almost personal choice.
“I’m 50 years old, I need to see the time clearly,” says Armand Billard.
The numeral appears in an unusual scale for a jumping hour watch, nearly twice the size of some traditional references. The numerals, specifically designed for Sartory-Billard by typographer Simon Schmidt, enhance readability through a balance of modernity and timelessness.
A simple movement of the wrist is enough—the time appears effortlessly.
The SB10 has no hands.
Time is entirely displayed through two ultra-thin sapphire discs, approximately 0.2 mm thick that seem to disappear into the light.
The hour disc jumps 30 degrees every 60 minutes, instantly revealing the next numeral. This mechanism creates a strong visual effect—almost cinematic: a precise instant, a shift, a beat.
The minute disc evolves continuously around the cabochon, creating a contrast between time that jumps and time that flows.
Two rhythms coexist: one discreet and punctual, the other fluid and continuous. This duality defines the unique character of the SB10.
The minutes are indicated by a sapphire disc completing a full rotation every sixty minutes. Around the cabochon, a peripheral ring coated with Super-LumiNova BGW9 traces the passage of time. This luminescent material, known in watchmaking for its stability and intensity, absorbs light during the day and releases it in the dark.
A red marker crosses this luminous ring, indicating the minute precisely, offering immediate and contrasted legibility in daylight.
But it is at night that the SB10 reveals another dimension. The ring glows with an intense turquoise light, forming a continuous halo around the cabochon. The light seems to float, suspended around the central material.
Time is no longer just read—it becomes atmosphere: a slow, silent, almost hypnotic rotation, a luminous circle in motion—a nearly celestial phenomenon on the wrist.
The SB10 has no dial. A cabochon replaces it—a polished, sculpted surface borrowed from jewelry, with no mechanical function.
This piece becomes the center of the watch, an element brought from outside, like a gemstone set onto the case—not to indicate time, but to give it presence.
Its surface captures light, but also the eye and the gesture. The cabochon is not only meant to be seen—it is designed to be touched. Polished, crafted, sometimes textured, it creates a physical, almost instinctive relationship with the watch.
The cabochon is not interchangeable. It is an integral part of the watch, creating an intimate link between the object and its owner. Like a jewel, it exists through time and use.
It is a watch to be both looked at and touched, where material naturally invites gesture, where the finger follows the surface to feel its relief and temperature.
The watch becomes a meeting point between the rigor of watchmaking and the freedom of material.
In this version, the cabochon is made of smoked black sapphire.
Its subtle transparency partially reveals the internal architecture of the watch: the jumping hour disc, the mechanical module, and the hour typography.
The sapphire acts as a dark veil. It reveals without fully exposing.
Depending on the angle and the light, it appears translucent, opaque, or reflective.
The Super-LumiNova minute ring charges with light during the day to deliver a striking display at night.
A minimalist object.
Yet full of depth.
Beneath its apparent simplicity lies a coherent mechanical construction.
The SB10 is powered by the automatic La Joux-Perret G100 caliber, paired with a patented jumping hour module ensuring a precise and instantaneous change.
Both hour and minute discs are made of sapphire and housed within a 39.5 mm stainless steel case.
Every technical choice serves the same vision: clarity, coherence, and purpose.
