Swiss watchmaking firm Jacob & Co. took a trip to the Mediterranean this autumn in order to unveil its newest Godfather-homage timepiece. The reveal took place in Sicily, the ancestral home of Mario Puzo’s fictional Corleone family, and also the birthplace of the not-so-fictional mafia system of organized crime that put the spicy flavor in the Corleone olive oil.
The watch, executed in the Jacob & Co. house style of whimsical-meets-remarkable craftsmanship, is a veritable travel-log of the Godfather 1 narrative. It’s called the Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary, and it’s limited to 50 examples and priced at $500,000 a pop. The watch’s face is a three-dimensional montage that blends famous quotes from the film with images and symbols evocative of the story and its titular character, while the watch’s complication ‘chimes’ with the famous waltz-time theme of the trilogy. A flying triple-axis tourbillon and JCFM04 manual-wind movement provide the mechanical marvels.
The outer edge of the white gold case is femtolaser-etched with suggestive images of scenes familiar to movies buffs who count the series as a favorite. Some are playfully lurid: Khartoum’s lovely head, for example, or Moe Green’s specs. The thirteen images are in narrative order, with the lot taking 30 hours to complete.
The Opera Godfather 50th Anniversary joins the original Opera Godfather and Opera Godfather Minute Repeater models in Jacob & Co.’s epic lineup. For those gangster-flick fans looking to expand into the truly lurid, the watchmaker also makes a Scarface Opera watch. Thankfully, there’s no miniature chain saw buzzing on the face of that model.
