The highlight of Glashütte Original’s Baselworld 2015 showcase was the Senator Cosmopolite, an all-new watch with an all-new manufacture movement. The Senator Cosmopolite is intended for the world traveler: it combines an easy-to-read, dual time-zone display with all the high-quality workmanship of German haute horlogerie. Let’s take a look.
The dial of the Senator Cosmopolite has plenty going on. All its hands are made of blued steel; the central hour and minutes are poire-shaped. These hands tell the local time, which corresponds to the time-zone indicator – two apertures (for standard and for daylight saving) found at 8 o’clock. It has a big date display at 4 and a day/night indicator at 9; both of these correspond to the local time. The subdial at 12 o’clock is devoted to the home time: two hands provide indication in 12 hours, while a small aperture tells day from night.
The home subdial also has Arabic numerals on the hours to differentiate it from the larger Romans around the dial. An arc across the subdial notes how much of the 72-hour power reserve remains. Although the railroad minutes track (used in both the small seconds and around the entire dial) seems a little out of touch with the rest of the watch’s design, the Cosmopolite’s dial is both highly functional and quite elegant. But what’s most important is what lies beneath: the Saxon company’s new movement, Caliber 89-02.
At 39.2 mm wide and 8 mm thick, the 89-02 is has a decently impressive stature. It’s an automatic movement, making use of an off-center micro-rotor to wind its barrel. The rotor is skeletonized and features a 21-karat gold oscillating weight, styled with the Glashütte Original logo. It is a Glashütte-style three-quarter plate with Geneva waves. Beside this plate and on a slightly lower plane is the balance, with an ornate and hand-engraved bridge. The balance beats at 28,800 vph. In total, the movement has roughly 430 parts; it runs in 63 jewels. Caliber 89-02 has Incabloc shock protection and an Anachron balance spring. It has four gold screws on the balance wheel for fine adjustment.
What makes this movement shine? In spite of having more than a half dozen distinct functions, it remains extremely simple to set and adjust. When you need to keep track of both local time and your home time, ease of use is key. (All the more so when jet lag makes everything more complicated.)
Caliber 89-02 allows for very easy adjustment. Remove the crown at 4 o’clock. If you’ve traveled east from home, turn it clockwise; for west, go counter-clockwise. As the crown turns, the IATA code for different time zones will appear in the aperture at 8 o’clock. Each of the 23 time zones that are offset from GMT by a whole hour appear in black lettering. The 10 time zones offset by half-hour increments are in blue, and the remaining three that use quarter-hour increments are in red. As you watch the time-zone display turn to your appointed destination, the center-mounted hour and minutes hands will rotate by hour and quarter-hour increments to reach the appropriate local time. It’s as simple as that.
The Glashütte Original Senator Cosmopolite comes in a 44-mm case. It is 14 mm thick. There are two versions: one in rose gold ($43,500) and another in white gold ($45,300). Both have the same dial. The rose-gold version comes on a black alligator strap and the white-gold version has a blue alligator strap; both have gold short-fold fasteners. The watch is water resistant to 50 meters.
For more pictures of the watch in both case designs, see the next page.
Ya escribí, creo que ya les escribí por este medio, si si fuere, pido las disculpas correspondientes.
Atte José Luis BARRANGU
This looks like a fabulous watch though quite expensive.