When a new play wants to make a big splash, it opens on Broadway. When a watch company wants to put its newest timepieces in front of the most avid and knowledgeable collectors, it also turns to Broadway — specifically Gotham Hall at 1356 Boradway, site of last weekend’s WatchTime New York event. Here are the timepieces that U.S. watch aficionados saw for the first time at the event.
The very first version of the Armin Strom Skeleton Pure in white gold made its debut at WTNY. The watch — a limited edition of 100 pieces — features Armin Strom’s skeletonized Caliber ARM09-S, here with the bridges accentuated by a blue 3D PVD colorization and then meticulously electroplated with rhodium by the brand’s in-house artisans. The manual-wind, double-barrel movement offers an eight-day power reserve with hours, minutes, small seconds and power-reserve indicator.
The Ball Fireman NECC is an uber-masculine new model with a 42-mm stainless steel case and a stainless steel carbide, rotating divers’ bezel. The watch case, with a screw-down crown and nonreflective sapphire crystal, is water-resistant to 300 meters (1,000 feet) and shock-resistant to 5,000 Gs. The movement is the automatic caliber BALL RR1103. As in many other Ball watches, the dials are distinguished by their use of 14 micro gas tubes (on the hour, minute, and second hands as well as the hour indices) for optimum nighttime legibility. Three dial options are available (all pictured below); all models come on a stainless steel bracelet with folding buckle.
The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One — a finalist for the “Mechanical Exception” award in the prestigious Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, is the very first timepiece in the eponymous watch brand of French independent watchmaker Emmanuel Bouchet. The watch features both a new type of transmission system and a unique way of reading the time: the heart of the mechanism, the double escape wheel with inward teeth and the distinctively designed anchor, are positioned prominently in the center of the dial.
The MeisterSinger Adhaesio — from the German brand renowned for its single-hand dial designs — is an innovative new GMT watch. While a single, central, needle-shaped hand to indicate the current time on the outer scale, numbered from 1 to 12 and subdivided into five-minute increments. Simultaneously, a small red arrow above the MeisterSinger logo points to the second time on an inner 24-hour scale on a rotating ring, separated from the main 12-hour ring by another ring, numbered 1 to 31, that displays the date.
Mühle Glashütte unveiled its Teutonia III Handaufzug Kleine Sekunde, a classically elegant steel watch (42 mm in diameter) with a fluted bezel, “Chemin de fer” minute track, and Roman numerals and understated indices marking the hours on the white, fivefold enamel dial. A small seconds subdial (“kleine sekunde” in German) appears at 6 o’clock. The hand-wound movement, Caliber MU 9415, has a woodpecker neck regulation, Glashütte three-quarter plate and typical surface finishing. Its functions include a stop-second and fast date correction and it holds a 42-hour power reserve. The watch comes on a crocodile strap with steel butterfly clasp.
The release of the new Nomos neomatik 1st Edition caught the attention of many an WTNY attendee. This new collection of 10 models offers the clean, Bauhaus-inspired dial designs for which this Glashütte-based brand is renowned along with new, automatic movements. Caliber DUW, which powers the new pieces, is ultra-thin (just 3.2 mm) and boasts a proprietary gear train, optimized by changing the order, angle, and number of teeth, thus raising its efficiency to 94.2 percent. Almost all the watchmaking parts — including an extra-flat ratchet wheel — are inserted between the base plate and the three-quarter plate, where the construction space is only a millimeter in height. To avoid friction between the wafer-thin parts, Nomos used a special new low-friction alloy. There are five watches in two versions, sporting either cyan blue highlights on a white silver-plated dial or neon orange highlights on a champagne-colored dial.
The successful revamp of the Porsche Design collection — which began in earnest with the launch of the Chronotimer collection earlier this year — continued with WTNY introduction of the Porsche Design 1919 Collection. The flagship of the new collection, the 1919 Datetimer Series 1, features a 42-mm titanium case with a glass bead-blasted finish. The unique lugs, with their eye-catching gap, provide a smooth, form-locking transition between the case and the bracelet or strap and add to the watch’s overall lightness. The convex, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal boasts a seven-layer nonreflective treatment. The screw-down crown aids in the case’s 100-meter water resistance.
