Baselworld 2013 … The Glashütte Original novelties

Guys I just come back from the Glashütte Original presentation. Exquisite! Click here and discover what they have shown me …

I don’t want to loose to much words before uploading my pictures, but a few things have to be mentioned. Glashütte Original has refined its style. You will find many little details when you look at their 2013 collection. The Panorama Date (the big date) now is tone in tone with the color of the dial. In other words it fits perfect the color of the dial. The new models have more slim bezel now, this enlarges the dial and this simply looks good. By investing more than one million Euro in their own dial production, Glashütte Original now can produce incredible beautiful dials. Please have a look at some details I photographed. The new blue dials of the Sixties Panorama Date and the Sixties are just stunning. This blue matches perfectly with all kind of blue things we like to wear and makes this watch to must-have-item.

Looking under the dials nothing has changed. We still encounter watchmaking at its best level. The quality of the Glashütte Original calibers and the grade of finishing is stunning.

So in my personal opinion Glashütte Original this year again made a big step forward by showing good taste, executing a one of a kind quality for its movements and cases and by being once again innovative.

Let us now discover the new watches:

The Glashütte Original Senator Chronometer Regulator in white or red gold

The special arrangement of a Regulator for the display reduced to a size appropriate for a wristwatch really looks good. Try to discover the varnished silver-grainé dial through my pictures. The new caliber is called 58-04 and it of course bases on the one we have already seen in the Senator Chronometer before. When you pull the crown the time display stops and the second hand jumps to a zero and remains there. A precise time setting is easy… When the crown is then turned to set the time the minute hand stops only on the indication of the full minute, this always guaranteeing the correct relationship between the minutes and seconds displayed. Cool!!!

The caliber 58-04 is an officially certified German Chronometer. The Senator Chronometer Regulator is officially certified and bears a certificate from the German Calibration Service (DKD). Unlike the similar tests performed by the COSC in accord with the Swiss testing standard, which specifies that each movement (without its final case) must be tested in five positions, the entire watch is tested during 15-days in Glashütte.

The Glashütte Original Senator Tourbillon in white gold

The new model places the Flying Tourbillon, developed by Glashütte watchmaker Alfred Helwig in 1920, within the elegant frame of a contemporary redesign of the Saxon manufactory’s classic Senator series. Alfred Helwig’s version implemented a cantilevered mechanism anchored on one side only, which led to it becoming known as a ‘flying’ tourbillon. The balance, pallet lever, and escape wheel are housed in a cantilevered carriage that turns 360 ° once a minute, thus neutralizing rate deviations of the balance due to gravity. The Flying Tourbillon remains an extraordinary aesthetic and horological invention.

The Glashütte Original Senator Sixties Panorama Date and Glashütte Original Senator Sixties

The German watchmaker adds two timepieces to the successful collection, both featuring a particularly fascinating color: the new versions of the Sixties and the Sixties Panorama Date present themselves in shimmering midnight blue. The domed German silver dials are galvanised in Glashütte Original’s own dial manufactory and given a sunburst finish. Stylized Arabic numerals appear at hours 3, 6, 9 and 12 within a finely drawn white minute ring. Lightly curved hour and minute hands in white gold with SuperLuminova highlighting and an elegant seconds hand assure that the time remains perfectly legible at all hours. The pure design of the watch is enhanced by precisely milled hour indexes.

The Glashütte Original Senator Panorama Date and Glashütte Original Senator Panorama Date Moon Phase

The in-house design team has made a number of changes to the existing models to achieve a stunning new look that is both classic and contemporary at once. The bezel has been cut back to make room for a lacquered silver-grain dial whose finely textured surface forms a sumptuous backdrop for deep black Roman numerals and a classic black railroad chapter ring. Glashütte Original’s compelling panorama date display is presented in black on an ivory ground matching the colour of the dial, and new blued-steel “poire” shaped hands enhance the elegance of the new design. The Senator Panorama Date is driven by the Saxon manufactory’s superb automatic calibre 100 03, the Senator Panorama Date Moon Phase by the calibre 100-04, both with a 55 hour power reserve. They can be easily admired through the generous sapphire crystal set in the case back.

The Glashütte Original Seventies

These watches were shown to me but they are not yet featured in the official press kit of the Saxon manufactory. So you may now discover among the first ones worldwide how the Seventies looks like. The dials changed and now the watches are available with either leather or rubber straps.