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The Top 5 Diamond Watches of all Time: The Jacob & Co. Billionaire 1 Watch
If you’ve ever wondered, as I haven’t, how Liberace would be telling the time if he were still with us, wonder no more.
Back in 2015, two larger than life characters from the high end fashion and elite horology industries got together to show the world just what they were capable of—and the end result was one of the most utterly ridiculous, obscenely opulent and wildly unnecessary timepieces ever made.
The Jacob & Co. Billionaire 1.
The Players
In the red corner, we have Flavio Briatore, head of ultra exclusive fashion label, Billionaire Couture. Billionaire is where you go when you want to spend $150,000 on a coat and top it off with a $500 baseball cap; you get the idea.
In the blue corner, we have Jacob Arabo, founder of jewelry and watch brand, Jacob & Co. Jacob & Co. is one of the first ports of call for those who cannot bear for anyone not to know just how really quite extraordinarily wealthy they are. As well as the Billionaire series (yes, there’s a series of them) other models in their portfolio have names like The Caviar Tourbillon, The Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon Baguette and (throwing all pretense out the window) The World is Yours Dual Time Zone Tourbillon; you get the further idea.
Now, both of these men have had what you might term ‘colorful’ lives. Flavio started out as a ski instructor and restaurant manager before going to work at the Italian stock exchange. There he met Luciano Benetton, founder of the eponymous clothing brand. Through that connection, Briatore was able to enter the glamorous world of F1, becoming team principle at Benetton Formula between 1989 and 1997.
After a brief hiatus when he was forced to live as a fugitive in the Virgin Islands following fraud convictions for rigged gambling games (who among us?) he was able to return to the sport in 2000 as head of Renault F1. There he received a lifetime ban in 2009 due to his role in ‘Crashgate’, saw the ban lifted in 2010, and has since gone on to develop multiple businesses (upscale pizza joint Crazy Pizza and hospitality brand Billionaire Life among them) as well as have multiple children by multiple super models.
By comparison, Jacob Arabo’s story so far has been that of a Benedictine monk.
Born in Uzbekistan, he started working part time at a local watchmaker’s at the age of 13. A year later, his family immigrated to America, settling in Queens, NYC. Leaving school at 16, he completed a six-month jewelry making course in four months, set up his own company and by the time he turned 21, already had a client list which included David Beckham, Madonna, and Jay-Z among others. The Notorious B.I.G gave him the nickname ‘Jacob the Jeweler’.
In 2002, Arabo moved onto timepieces when he introduced the ‘Five Time Zone’ watch collection, which quickly caught the attention of the likes of Bono and Naomi Campbell. Other innovations followed; the Quenttin was the first watch with a vertical tourbillon and 31-day power reserve, while the Astronomia featured a unique gear arrangement to exhibit a mesmerizing planetary display.
As with Briatore, a silly legal misunderstanding in 2006 saw Arabo arrested on charges of conspiring to launder $270 million in drug money for the infamous Black Mafia Family organized crime outfit. That oversight was cleared up in 2008 when a plea deal got the charges lessened to falsifying records and making false statements, with Arabo spending the next two-and-a-half years enjoying federal hospitality.
Today, Jacob is something of a cultural icon. His name crops up in numerous hip-hop tracks and he even made a cameo in Drake’s 2020 music video, ‘When To Say When & Chicago Freestyle’.
Clash of the Alphas
We can think of these two silverbacks getting together rather like a meeting of ammonium nitrate and diesel. There was always going to be a big bang.
While it was unlikely a collaboration between a pair with their respective track records and fashion sensibilities would produce a Calatrava, what we got was on a whole new level of excess and over-extravagance.
Let’s break down the numbers:
the Billionaire 1 measures a not insubstantial 47mm x 58mm. That alone makes it a formidable piece.
It is also heavy, about 12.5oz. If you’re wondering how that compares to more realistic things, it’s about the same as a full can of soda. Or, to put it another way, more than twice the weight of a Rolex Submariner.
Some of that weight comes from the 18k white gold case, even though it has a fully skeletonized center through which you can view the in-house Caliber JCAM09 manually-wound movement with its tourbillon complication and 72-hour reserve mainspring barrel working away.
However, as you will have guessed, most of the heft is accounted for by the annual yield of a decent-sized diamond mine.
Now, I’m going to admit at this point that the Billionaire 1 is not my kind of watch. I’m more your understated, vintage-inspired tool model kind of chap. But even I can appreciate the artistry which has gone on here. All told, the case and bracelet have been the recipients of some 239 emerald-cut baguette diamonds. That amounts to around 260 carats worth.
Each one painstakingly selected for quality, only those rated IF, or Internally Flawless, were deemed worthy. After that, every stone has had to be cut precisely to shape and set to ensure not only the desired aesthetic and structural integrity but also that each setting remains invisible. Even the winding crown is a diamond, a little polished cabochon which is as close to subtle as we’re going to get today.
It really is an astonishing achievement and while I wouldn’t have it as a gift (well, not without a store receipt so I could return it for cash) I’m delighted things like this exist.
Every industry, and watchmaking in particular, needs eccentrics. It needs boldness and audacity. It needs characters like Briatore and Arabo; risk-takers leading preposterous lives through which the rest of us can live vicariously.
The fact I don’t like it is irrelevant. It’s not meant for the likes of me. It’s meant for someone as oddball and original and outlandish as its creator.
So, who bought this one-of-a-kind piece? Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather in 2018. And was there ever a more fitting and perfect match than that? As with the Billionaire 1, Mayweather is a love-or-hate figure as well. And, again like the watch, he doesn’t really care about the opinion of others. He is also, handily enough seeing as he had to fork out $18m for it, an actual billionaire.
Strangely, that is around the same price Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona brought at auction the year prior. Two more different examples of ostensibly the same thing you never did see, but at least Mayweather’s purchase looks like a watch that cost about the same as the average satellite launch.
As a glorious middle finger to the notion of subtlety, Jacob & Co.’s magnum opus really has no equal.
Featured Photo: Mixed art by Oriol Mendivil for BKT Archive.
