Credits: Article and images by Tim Mosso @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/01/09/montblanc-villeret-1858-vintage-chronograph-reviewed-by-tim-mosso/
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Topside, Montblanc’s 43.5mm Vintage Chronograph sets the stage for its marvelous mechanism within. Cost-no-object refinements like grey gold — no rhodium here — and a mother-of-pearl crown insert confirm that this watch is an image-builder for the larger house of Meisterstück.
And the sprawling twin-scale dial looks almost menacing across its expanse of gloss black enamel. Montblanc artfully combined Breguet-style Arabic numerals, a snailed central tachymeter, and a peripheral telemeter scale to impart a suitable first-third twentieth-century aesthetic. Thanks to a movement with pocket watch roots, the sub-registers are properly spaced and scaled to fit this enormous dial.
This is a good time to note that all enamel is not created equal. A Seiko Presage might offer enamel at prices barely above the realm of fashion watches, but its flaws around hands, pinions, and date windows are visible even at arm’s length. White enamel is often favored, even by extremely posh brands, because it reveals as little of enamel’s inherently rippled texture as possible.
Ever wonder why even Patek Philippe 5016 dials were made mostly in white when enamel was chosen? You guessed it; white hides flaws. Every 5016 — priced like a house — that I’ve ever encountered with a black dial used… lacquer. And then there’s the grand feu enamel on this Montblanc. It reads like still water – not the usual baked vitreous orange peel. It’s indistinguishable from lacquer. And that’s just the table-setter.
Minerva caliber 16.29 is why you buy this watch. It’s a modern movement with engineering roots in the 1920s, and this shows to spectacular effect. The slow-beating 2.5Hz balance wheel is nearly the radius of the 38mm+ caliber, and it pulses in sync with a hand-formed overcoil hairspring. Nobody regrets the industrial-spec vertical clutch, because there isn’t one. A glorious hand-tuned lateral clutch engages via a crenelated wheel of black-polished columns.
Manually indexing that column wheel evokes the door pull of a 1980s Mercedes S-Class and speaks with the voice of a rivet gun in the distance. Try it; this is the tactile feedback a watch collector could spend a lifetime seeking from more established watch brands — and never find.
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Credits: Article and images by Tim Mosso @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/01/09/montblanc-villeret-1858-vintage-chronograph-reviewed-by-tim-mosso/