Crazy Hours in titanium, with the volume up.

On a normal watch the hour hand is geared to the minute hand and creeps round the dial. On Crazy Hours the hour hand is driven separately, held still for sixty minutes and then released to jump to the next numeral in numerical order, wherever Franck Muller has put it. Every hour is the same five-position jump clockwise, which is why the layout looks random and is not. The minute hand is untouched, so the time reads as a numeral plus minutes, once you find the numeral.

This version puts the mechanism in titanium, which is lighter than the steel and gold Vanguards and takes a darker brushed finish, and then adds colour everywhere the steel versions do not: purple on the flange and the strap, orange around the numerals, yellow on the hands. It is the Crazy Hours for someone who wants the watch noticed before the dial is.

The dealer’s description is the complete kind: titanium case, screw-down brushed engraved titanium caseback, fixed titanium bezel, grey dial, yellow hands, white and orange Arabic numerals, Crazy Hours with minutes and seconds, purple rubber strap with a leather insert, titanium push-button deployment clasp, sapphire, screw-down titanium crown, Swiss automatic, 30 metres, 42 hours, about 45mm by 14mm thick, 27mm strap. The one figure to read carefully is the case: the dealer says 45mm across, Franck Muller says about 44 by 53.7mm for the V 45, and the difference is how you measure a barrel. The calibre here is Franck Muller’s published one. The model row 45CHTTBRORPRL is the dealer’s code, not a Franck Muller reference.

Whether the watch is new with Franck Muller’s warranty is not stated in the rows we read; ask, and ask for the box and papers. Every figure here comes from the listing and from Franck Muller’s published description, not from handling the watch.

This is a regular Amazon listing from an independent dealer, Luxor Watches on the day we read it, with Amazon’s 30-day return window; it is not a Luxury Stores pre-owned unit. The second button opens the live search for titanium Crazy Hours in case this one has sold.

Crazy Hours models have resold for well under new and close to what pre-owned buyers paid, sometimes more, sometimes less; that is a pattern, not a promise, and nothing here is investment advice.