Hublot

About Hublot

Hublot arrived in 1980 with a single idea that offended traditionalists: a gold case on a natural rubber strap. The name means porthole in French, which describes the bezel with its exposed H-shaped screws. Under Jean-Claude Biver the 2005 Big Bang turned the 'art of fusion' into a whole catalogue — ceramic, carbon, Magic Gold, and cases machined from solid sapphire.

Signature models

The references that define the house — and the ones you are most likely to meet.

• Big Bang
• Classic Fusion
• Spirit of Big Bang
• Big Bang Unico
• MP Series

What to look for

Details worth checking before you trust a dial. None of them certify authenticity on their own.

• Six H-shaped screws set into the bezel, evenly torqued and all oriented the same way
• A dense, sandwich-construction case — Hublots are heavy, and a light one is suspect
• The Unico caliber puts the chronograph's column wheel on the dial side, visible through an aperture
• Rubber straps should smell and feel like natural rubber, with a crisply moulded logo, not a printed one

Facts

• Hublot machines complete cases from solid blocks of synthetic sapphire — a material so hard it can only be cut by diamond tooling.
• Magic Gold is 18k gold fused with ceramic, hard enough to resist scratching from almost anything except diamond.