GWD26 Armchair Picks: Chester’s Top 3 choices, with musings on the scene

Geneva Watch Days has become the fair I look forward to most. It is small enough that the brands showing there have to say something to justify the trip, and the ones who turn up tend to be independents and smaller maisons whose work rewards a close look. This year the haute horlogerie end of the room held my attention almost entirely.

I was not in Geneva, so this is an armchair pick, put together from our own hands-on coverage with no wrist time of my own behind it. Plenty of other watches deserved a place, but the format allows three.

Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold Gilt

The first watch on my list is the Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold Gilt, and it is the dial that put it there. The Double Ellipse case has been in service long enough to read as a signature, and in 5N rose gold at 38.6mm by 35.5mm, 7.7mm thick, it is about as well proportioned as this shape has ever been. Daniel Roth has not disclosed a price.

What makes this one different is how the dial was made. A gold base is cut on a rose engine with a pinstripe guilloché, then plated in black across several layers, with the Roman indices and numerals masked off while that happens and uncovered afterwards. It reads black in most light and turns dark blue in some of it. Everything else is the existing Extra Plat, movement included, which makes the dial the whole of the change.

Ferdinand Berthoud FB 3SPC.4.1

Almost nothing about the Ferdinand Berthoud FB 3SPC.4.1 is new, and that is the reason it is here. The movement is the one the FB 3 already had, carried over untouched. What has changed is the case, now ceramicised titanium at 42.3mm, and a greyish dial holding a single tone across the whole face, and it asks SGD 225,500 with GST.

Ceramicised titanium hardens the surface and leaves a flat grey that neither raw titanium nor steel will give you, and by all accounts the 42.3mm case wears smaller than the number suggests. Set against the gold versions the effect is a much younger watch, which is more than a material swap usually delivers. At this level the movement is normally the whole argument for the money, and this release puts that weight on a surface treatment.

L. Leroy Vox Temporis Minute Repeater

Rounding up my selection is the L. Leroy Vox Temporis Minute Repeater, the one on this list I would most want to hear. Minute repeater, flying tourbillon, hand wound, 43mm across and 13.95mm thick, ninety hours in reserve. Titanium is EUR 265,000, red gold EUR 290,000 and platinum EUR 320,000, EU taxes included.

The dial is the part I keep returning to. A hand guilloché disc turns once every twelve hours, the arrow appliqué sitting over it is hand-worked and faceted, and the whole design comes from an 1810 Leroy pocket watch.

What it will not do is tell you the time with any precision. There are two hands and not a single index, numeral or minute track to read them against, so the best you get is an estimate from the angles. Aesthetics beat function here, and the practical answer to what time is it turns out to be the repeater, chimed on demand. It is a collectible and a fun thing to own, which is a different job from keeping you on time.

It was the titanium that Peter picked out for the loudest and most beautiful tones of the three, and on a watch leaning this hard on its chime that is the specification that counts. The platinum has the GPHG pre-selection, but I would still take the titanium.

Concluding Thoughts

What connects these three is that the money has gone into things you can see and hear. A guilloché dial that changes colour as the light moves, a case material picked for how it sits on the wrist, a repeater whose best tone came from the cheapest of its three metals. None of that shows up well in a specification table, and you have to look at the watch to understand the argument for it.