Looking for a quietly contemporary timepiece that speaks of the heritage of watchmaking? That allows you to see the time in Athens, Bangkok, Samoa - and 21 other places, each in a different timezone? The insurgent watchmakers at Baltic have just the watch for you. The new Baltic Heures du Monde collection references vintage timepieces of the 1930s, adds signature stone dials and exudes period charm while being all the while very much of the 21st century. It’s a hard trick to pull off, but we’d say Baltic have done it.
Baltic’s designers set out to honour and update the pioneering ideas of Louis Cottier. His 1930s world time watches for Patek Phillipe are among the most collectible of all for this storied name. Cottier wanted his automatic watches to tell the time everywhere. He came up with the idea of an inner rotating ring that could be matched with the 24 cities he picked out as key to each timezone, named on the bezel. Baltic’s painstaking work is a fitting tribute to one of the greats of world timekeeping.
Bezel is here in ceramic, with 24 destinations duly named. Inner ring rotates so that it’s at-a-glance easy to check the time anywhere, just as Cottier intended. But you’ll look close to see this innovation. Baltic don’t make watches that need to shout. Case size is 36 mm in diameter, thickness including double domed sapphire crystal just 11.3 mm. It’s when you get up close to that steel case, protecting the watch to a depth of 100 m, that the design begins to speak. Subtle and all the better for it.
Signature stone faces are available in golden tiger’s eye, sky blue sodalite and technical grey labradorite. Given this is natural stone, it follows that no two are the same. Detailing is key: engraved caseback is screwed-down, another heritage detail. Movement is automatic winding Soprod C125 GMT, modified to take out the date function and disable the Soprod’s GMT function, thus allowing the 24-hour inner disc to be rotated to match timezones. It’s clever, all-analogue stuff.
Baltic founder Etienne Malec says he began his niche watchmaking company in tribute to his father, a watch-collector who painstakingly kept a diary of each timepiece that came his way. The history embodied in each of the Heures du Monde collection honours that. As Malec says of Baltic, “This adventure is the best tribute I could pay to my father."
This first Baltic Heures du Monde series is limited to just 200 numbered pieces of each dial. You’re unlikely to bump into another that’s the same, wherever in the world you are.
