In early 2023, Hublot introduced the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Yellow Neon Saxem, featuring a case made of a mysterious and rather impressive-looking crystal called Saxem. It looked like an addition to the brand’s extensive line of sapphire replica watches for sale. But as a retired laser physicist, I wondered: what material was behind that name? Perhaps a special kind of synthetic sapphire?
Their CA best fake watches stood out with fantastically and provocatively high price tags and, accordingly, the brilliance and transparency of the super-expensive sapphire case.
All this triggered a race for colored sapphire cases. Brands, especially Richard Mille and Hublot, tried to make sapphire replica watches online in unprecedented hues. Thus, red, pink, blue, yellow, orange, purple, green, brown, gray and even black sapphire watches came on the market.
In 2019, Hublot took a new step with the Big Bang MP -11 Saxem with a bright emerald-green crystal. It looked very similar to a sapphire case, but the brand announced it was a new material called Saxem. Hublot had an explanation ready: the name is an abbreviation for “Sapphire Aluminum oXide Earth Mineral”.
Few would have been noticed if the story hadn’t continued. A new Saxem iteration appeared in early 2023 – the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Yellow Neon Saxem copy watches for men with a striking neon yellow case.
So what has Hublot come up with?
As a physicist, it is evident to me that Hublot did not invent this material. Furthermore, it didn’t appear to have been invented for top Hublot replica watches. The only thing they invented was the resounding marketing of the Saxem name. I believe Hublot agreed to a commercial offer from an inventive supplier.
Scientists, experts in solid-state lasers, developed an alternative to sapphire over fifty years ago. Or rather, an alternative to synthetic ruby, from which the world’s first laser was made. So, yttrium aluminum garnet, better known to scientists as YAG, was the promising alternative to sapphire – or ruby – in laser technology.
Sapphire does not like foreign ions, which produce the laser radiation – their concentration in sapphire is limited because its atomic structure is so rigid and dense. One of the few exceptions is chromium, which in sapphire gives a red color, and red sapphire is also known as synthetic ruby, which is used extensively as jewels cheap fake watches movements.
I have no evidence, but my guess is that YAG and Saxem are the same thing. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t change the crux of the matter: if it’s not YAG, it’s a similar synthetic crystal that was most likely developed for use in lasers.
In that sense, much more impressive things can be done with yttrium aluminum garnet than with sapphire. For example, it allows the use of a wide variety of additives that can be used to adjust the wavelength of the laser radiation, which was of utmost importance to the scientists.
Therefore, it could also be interesting for a watchmaker, because it’s possible to obtain crystals with beautiful shades of color – and this is likely to be exactly what luxury Hublot replica watches has exploited. The high laser quality of the material is reflected in the fact that the doped YAG crystals have a noticeable fluorescence, and their hue can be described as very bright, neon.
So Hublot offers a watch made of yttrium-aluminum-garnet, for which they came up with the sonorous name Saxem. This word resonates with something close to the word “sex”, which makes sense because a touch of sexuality is never superfluous in a watch. There’s another bonus, though: anyone can make high quality replica watches from yttrium aluminum garnet, but Hublot has trademarked ‘Saxem’.
Yttrium aluminum garnet has only a slightly lower hardness – half a point on the Mohs scale – than sapphire, the second hardest natural material after diamond, and this is an important specification for the material from which the Swiss movements replica watches case is made.
In watchmaking, when it is not a question of setting a case with precious stones, only synthetic sapphire is used – for making watch crystals, jewels for the movement, very rarely for mainplate and bridges, and even more rarely for making cases.
Unlike sapphire, yttrium aluminum garnet is a purely synthetic material with no natural equivalent and, from a mineralogical point of view, has little to do with the group of natural minerals called garnets. In terms of hardness, yttrium aluminum garnet is slightly inferior to sapphire, but it has a higher refractive index that makes polished parts shine better than sapphire – Hublot points this out unequivocally when describing 1:1 China super clone watches made of Saxem, for example the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Yellow Neon Saxem.
Let’s take a look at this watch. It costs 220,000 euros, which is about twice as much as a “normal” tourbillon of this brand. For example, a similar model from Hublot, the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Carbon made of carbon, costs 105,000 euros. This highlights the price of ‘Saxem’.
However, the premium for a transparent sapphire case in the Hublot collection is about the same ratio, except for a rare model with a sapphire bracelet, which also clearly participates in the world championship for the title of the most expensive watch bracelet.
Still, it makes a lot of sense for Hublot to offer Saxem watches, which look like a promising alternative to sapphire-cased AAA replica watches. Even though the price is about the same as the sapphire models, I’m sure that the huge premium will more than cover the cost of using YAG. Oh sorry, Saxem.
I would like to point out that synthetic sapphire is also found in the Big Bang Tourbillon Saxem. It is used for the transparent mainplate and bridges, the dial, the watch crystal, caseback window, and of course for the jewels of the caliber.
A few words about the tourbillon movement, which deserves respect. The in-house automatic caliber HUB6035 features a cantilever tourbillon that is often referred to as “flying”, although that is nothing more than a poetic metaphor. The caliber uses an unusual scheme developed by Girard-Perregaux in 1999 for its automatic caliber GP9600 with three gold bridges.
What makes this Hublot special is that the micro-rotor of the automatic winding mechanism is placed on top of the winding barrel – you can see it swinging and winding the fake watches wholesale. At the same time, it makes the watch look even more dynamic and attractive when viewed from the dial side, adding to the grandeur of the tourbillon. And this arrangement saves space.
But more importantly, with this layout Girard-Perregaux designers kept the symmetrical structure of the movement. Symmetry is a prerequisite for the design of a caliber with three gold bridges, which was originally wound by hand.
In developing the HUB6035 caliber, Hublot watchmakers used the same construction with a micro-rotor above the winding barrel, however, they changed the architecture to eliminate a minor drawback of the reversed hand fitting.
This is an easily recognizable feature of Girard-Perregaux calibers with three gold bridges, where the hour hand is placed on top of the minute hand rather than on the bottom.
On best quality replica Hublot’s Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic watches, including Saxem, we find the traditional arrangement with the minute hand above the hour hand.