Hands-On: Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric Meteorite Watch
In 2014, Dutch watchmaker Christiaan van der Klaauw provided a mechanical astronomical watch movement that was the basis of one of Parisian Van Cleef & Arpels’ most successful men’s watches. That was the Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Planetarium, which was then featured on aBlogtoWatch. Christiaan van der Klaauw (CVDK) has always been known as an astronomical watch specialist and has produced a number of watches with various forms of semi-complete planetariums on the dial. None of those watches actually displayed a full solar system planetarium… until recently, when Christiaan van der Klaauw would debut the aptly named CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric. Today on aBlogtoWatch, I go hands-on with the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric, as well as a new version of it for 2025 known as the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric Meteorite. This latter model is a limited edition of three pieces, which rockets the price of the already high-end product thanks to using a case that was milled from a solid piece of meteorite metal material.
The Grand Planetarium Eccentric watch announcement came 10 years after the Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Planetarium. In 2024, Christiaan van der Klaauw announced the upcoming release of a brand new astronomical watch, with the first few pieces being delivered at the end of 2024. Most of the watch enthusiast community still doesn’t know about the Grand Planetarium Eccentric, but they probably should since it is the new leader of astronomical planetarium watches out there. What I find interesting is that over the last several years, there have been other high-end brands that flirt with astronomical complications but haven’t actually put in any effort to create accurate astronomical indications. The best example is probably the lavish and popular Jacob & Co Astronomia collection of watches. Technically and visually, Astronomia watches can be very beautiful and compelling, but none of them actually provide any celestial indications about the positions of planetary objects. Their appeal is in their fun. The appeal in a watch like the Grand Planetarium Eccentric is, of course, in its beauty, but more specifically in how it carries on the human tradition of precisely tracking the movements of planetary bodies through the sky.
Christiaan van der Klaauw as a brand is now in its third phase of ownership and operation. The current owner and leader is the accomplished Dutch watchmaker and engineer Pim Koeslag. He was previously a top manager at Frederique Constant in Geneva, and while there, he also started the boutique high-end watchmaker Ateliers deMonaco. He acquired Christiaan van der Klaauw a few years ago from the previous owners and is moving the brand forward both technically and visually. The Grand Planetarium Eccentric proves how serious the brand is and is currently the only wristwatch on the market to show the complete solar system rotation of the eight planets.
The movement doesn’t just stop at indicating the time plus tracking the motion of the eight planets. Taking up the entirety of the dial, the planetarium display shows the more accurate elliptical versus circular orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The “Eccentric” part of the watch’s name is in reference to the elliptical versus circular planetary orbit display. The orbit of each of these hand-painted orbs ranges from under 90 days to nearly 165 years. This requires highly complex gearing, which in total number 3,338 teeth according to Christiaan van der Klaauw. While the planetarium complication is a module, it sits on top of an exclusive “manufacture” Christiaan van der Klaauw automatic movement. The movement is lovely to look at when viewed through the display caseback. The automatic rotor is inspired by the design of the Christiaan van der Klaauw brand logo, while my favorite part is the “shooting star” style bridges. The movement operates at 3Hz with 60 hours of power reserve.
In the very center of the watch is the sun, which spins and is also the seconds indicator. The outer periphery of the dial is a calendar indicator that moves along a month and zodiac track. Since the planetary motions are aligned, adjusting the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric is easy and is entirely done through the crown. The backdrop of this marvelous celestial display is polished blue aventurine, which attractively resembles a starry view of the night sky. As I mentioned above, each of the small planets on the dial is actually hand-painted with remarkable detail. The Meteorite limited edition version of the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentic has a slightly different cosmetic feature on the dial: There is a meteorite metal ring in the middle of the dial that has a few actual space rocks attached to it. This isn’t just decorative but is intended to represent the main asteroid belt that exists in the middle of our solar system. That’s pretty cool.
Even though it is more complicated, the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric watch case is the same 44mm width as the Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Planetarium. The case isn’t as thick as you might imagine (it is rather wearable), and the standard versions come in an 18k rose gold or platinum case. Over the dial is a domed sapphire crystal that has a special feature etched on the inside. Rather than try to take up dial space with hour markers, Christiaan van der Klaauw decided to laser-cut Roman numeral hour markers into the underside of the sapphire crystal. This offers useful legibility to reading the time and is a clever way of adding hour markers while not disrupting the elegant “space” of the Grand Planetarium Eccentric watch’s face.
The limited edition of three pieces Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric Meteorite is nearly $500,000 more expensive than the 18k rose gold model. How is that so? Christiaan van der Klaauw tells me it is because of how expensive much larger pieces of meteorite are. Such a large piece was needed to be milled into a watch case component. This is where emotion meets technical practicality. Indeed, space rocks and metals like meteorites are rare, impressive, and quite literally out of this world. At the same time, most meteorite material is essentially iron and nickel. The value one places on meteorite is one’s own subjective belief about how much more special space metal is versus terrestrial metal (Earth itself is just another body floating in space). If it is very worth it to you, then perhaps the half million dollar premium for the meteorite case is worth it to you. The 18k rose gold or platinum version of the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric watch is more than enough astro-horology for me. Price for the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric watch starts at €208,000 EUR in 18k rose gold, is a bit more in platinum, and goes up in price to €700,000 EUR for the Christiaan van der Klaauw Grand Planetarium Eccentric Meteorite limited edition model. For more information, please visit the Christiaan van der Klaauw website.
