Marteau : The First Strike
Wednesday, 15 - Thursday, 23 October 2025

Ming 20.09 Tourbillon, Founder's Personal Prototype

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Lot Details

Formerly the founder’s own watch, this MING 20.09 Tourbillon is the prototype and first assembled of a 10-piece run — the brand’s first flying tourbillon and inaugural Special Projects Cave creation. In Their Own Words: "The MING 20.09 Tourbillon is a foundational watch in the history of MING – not only is it the brand’s first flying tourbillon, it was also the first experimental Special Projects Cave and serves as the genesis for the brand’s collection today. This watch was the first time MING, together with Helfenstein Mechanik, applied the isostrut case geometry – seen here in the caseband – and this enabled MING to eventually engineer and manufacture the world’s lightest watch, the LW.01, which uses isostrut case geometry for weight saving. The 20.09 Tourbillon also has sapphire hands and HyCeram, which eventually made its way into production watches like the 20.11 Mosaic and 29.01 Worldtimer among others. It was the proof of concept for the sapphire Mosaic, a world’s first when it was unveiled by the brand in 2021. It even features a unique bracelet that served as the foundation and a key learning opportunity for the brand’s future bracelets including something special it is developing for 2026. The watch is powered by the Schwarz Etienne for MING Cal. TSE.M1 – an inverted, flying tourbillon movement with automatic winding via a hybrid tungsten-gold microrotor with guilloche. A cool little party trick for this watch is the luminous bear face that serves as the backdrop to the tourbillon and creates a backlight at night. The 41.5mm case is machined from grade 5 titanium, with a DLC-coated isotrut caseback and fully openworked ‘flying blade’ lugs. A total of 10 watches were produced, with this specific watch being my personal prototype and the first watch to be assembled." - Ming Thein, Founder of MING

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