The Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum interprets one of the most contemporary and useful complications – the world time function – in a new, innovative way.
This 41 mm timepiece, indicating the local time in 24 time zones all over the world, will be available either in steel or red gold. The Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum is simple to read and easy to use, displaying the time in different parts of the world in a practical and intuitive way. The dial is constructed in a multi-layer way. At its centre, the main sapphire crystal dial displays the continents as viewed from the North Pole which are encircled by the names of the 24 cities representing the different time zones. The continents are cut out from the rest of the disc that displays the oceans in a light blue colour. Under the main dial is a disc showing day and night as well as the 24 hours time zones, which rotates with the movement mechanism.
To adjust the time, the desired local city needs to be first positioned at “6 o’clock” by the aid of the pusher at “8 o’clock”. Then the hours and minutes (which are always linked with the day/night and 24 hours time-zones disc) can be adjusted through the crown to adjust the correct local time of the desired city. Once this is done, in addition to the correct local time the correct time of all the 24 time zones will simultaneously be displayed around the sapphire crystal dial.
When travelling to another time zone, the new destination city simply needs to be placed at 6 o’clock. This adjustment is again done through the pusher at “8 o’clock” which will turn at the same time the continents and cities, the day/night disc with the 24 hours time zones as well as the hour hand in jumps of one hour. The precise time of the minutes is not affected. Once this simple regulation is done, the local time of the new destination as well as the 24 time zones will be fully synchronized again.
Due to the innovative multi-layer dial construction, the zonetimes of all 24 time zones can be indicated. A day/night disc shows at a glance where it is day or night on the planet. The rotation of this disc changes the colours of the continents as seen on the dial, alternately from light (day) to dark (night).
A self-winding mechanical movement from Sellita that is combined with a Montblanc in-house developed time-zone-mechanism powers the watch; it is named calibre MB29.20. Its balance oscillates at the frequency of 28,800 semi-oscillations per hour or 4 hertz. The case diameter = 41 mm, the height = 12 mm.
Did you ask yourself where the name of the watch comes from? Here is the answer…
The earth is anchored at the core of this complication, that is named Orbis Terrarum, the Latin term for “globe”, “earth”, and “world”.
The Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum will be sold for 4990 Euro including 19 % VAT in steel and 13.900 Euro including 19 % VAT in red gold.
Very interesting, reminds me a little bit of the Vacheron World Timer. Montblanc is stunning… Do you have a picture of the back of the watch?
Great idea and very straight forward implementation! This simple and direct visualisation of time zones and day and night is a real enhancement to this topic. And I appreciate the fact that this design was implemented in a way that the final watch is still affordable.
There is only one thing that distracts me. I don’t like the colour. The colour in these images may be caused by a not optimal rendering. And the watch will most probably look better in reality. But this strong blue representing the oceans is a bit too much for me.
I played a bit with the colour in an image editing software. First I tried gray scales. But that’s not the solution. Then I tried warm colours like brown, red, orange and yellow. The result was funny but not what I was looking for. So I tried to reduce the colour saturation. And that’s it (at least for me). With reduced sturation the blue in the central disc becomes some kind of cyan. And that way I LOVE this watch.