Montblanc Collection Villeret Vintage 1858 Chronographe Watch

This is a peek at one of the new Montblanc watches due for release in a couple of weeks in Geneva. For 2010 comes the Montblanc Collection Villeret Vintage 1858 Chronographe Watch. A distinct homage to retro chronograph watches that exhibited the characteristic spiral or "snail shell" tachymetre scale. This was often done to allow for a telemeter scale to be placed on the periphery of the ring - two measuring devices so vintage themselves that most people have no idea how to use them or what they are to be used for. But who cares, they look pretty cool.

Dials should be more than lovely to look at being in a high-quality enamel that typically makes the numerals and scales pop in a crisp and colorful manner. Montblanc of course added their characteristic font for the Arabic hour markers. The hands are in blued steel. Inside the watch is a retro Minerva caliber 16-29 manually would column wheel chronograph movement. Note that the 30 minute chronograph is a monopusher operated via a pusher in the crown. Montblanc owns Minerva. There are two versions of the limited edition of 116 pieces watch - both are in large for the style 43.5mm wide cases. Half of them in 18k red gold (with brown alligator straps) and the other half in 18k white gold (with black alligator straps).

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site ablogtoread.com.