Inside the £160,000 watch built to weigh less than a coin

Strip away the price tag and the Richard Mille RM 55-01 is, at its core, an engineering exercise — a watch built around a hand-wound, openworked movement that weighs less than five grams, lighter than a coin. That detail has taken on new attention after Manchester City striker Erling Haaland was photographed wearing one on a yacht off Sicily, following the end of Norway’s World Cup 2026 qualification campaign.

The model Haaland wore, in White Quartz TPT, was officially launched only in April this year with a reported retail price of around £160,000. Rather than piling on complications, the RM 55-01 keeps its design simple, focusing on displaying the time while letting the movement and case materials do the talking — a philosophy that sets it apart from several of Richard Mille’s more elaborate recent releases.

It comes in three versions: White Quartz TPT, Grey Quartz TPT and Carbon TPT, all built from lightweight, durable composite materials that have become closely associated with the Swiss watchmaker. Despite not being an official limited edition, Richard Mille’s famously low annual production numbers mean the watch remains genuinely hard to get.

That scarcity has already shown up in resale prices. Listings for the RM 55-01 have reached as high as £849,500, with other versions spotted at £710,000 and £620,000 depending on case material — all well above the original retail figure, and all within a few months of launch. These are asking prices rather than confirmed completed sales, but they point to how much demand has built since the watch reached the market.

Haaland has previously been linked to luxury watch collecting, and this latest sighting is expected to draw further attention to the RM 55-01. Whatever buyers end up actually paying, the interest around the watch — and its engineering — shows little sign of slowing down.

Wikimedia Commons/by MichaelEmilio