The 1858 Geosphere by Montblanc is part of the celebrations of the 160th anniversary of Minerva, the watchmaking company in Villeret purchased by Richemont Group and assigned to Montblanc in 2007. The name of the collection, 1858, is a reference to the year in which Minerva was founded. The 1858 Geosphere is an interesting watch,…
The 1858 collection by Montblanc is developing very nicely, with its pilot’s inspired automatics and chronographs, and its creative use of colours and materials. The most striking piece shown by Montblanc at SIHH was this gigantic 1858 Pocket Watch Limited Edition 100, a 60mm watch, 20.8 mm thick. The two still photos provided by Montblanc…
Montblanc presented a new version of its 1858 Chronograph Tachymeter Limited Edition on 17 October 2017 at SIAR in Mexico. It’s a watch that shows just how successful Montblanc has been in its treatment of the Minerva brand, part of the Montblanc world since 2007. Montblanc has retained the Minerva identity along with the historic…
This Pulsograph chronograph – with a pulsometer scale – is part of the Montblanc Meisterstück Heritage Collection, which comprises watches made using traditional watchmaking techniques, and so that incorporate the expertise of the Minerva manufacture in Villeret. Watches in this collection have certain distinguishing features such as applied hour markers, a Roman numeral XII, dauphin…
This watch by Montblanc is interesting for many reasons. There are a few other watches that measure time to a precision of 1000th of a second, but the Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph 1000 Limited Edition 18 is probably the watch with the clearest display. Its movement reveals the heritage of Minerva and its traditional manufacturing unit…
Montblanc’s entry-level 2017 sports watch has a 100 metres water resistance that makes it an all-weather watch, and a unidirectional rotating bezel that can be used for taking approximate times, or for keeping track of a second time zone. But while many sports watches this year have a diving watch inspiration (such as the Baume…
Often, when one brand buys another, the brand that has been absorbed gradually disappears from sight, such as the case of Bulgari and its purchase of Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth in 2000. Today, the two smaller brands have been entirely integrated into Bulgari, and there is no mention of the independent designers on the…
I really like this watch, for several reasons. First of all, it’s a bit crazy. A massive, bulky piece, 50 mm in diameter, 15.2 mm thick, the sort of exaggerated passion that is quite unusual for a measured, Germanic brand such as Montblanc. It has a refreshing brashness. Second, it has some features which, refined…
The incorporation of Minerva, a watchmaking company founded in Villeret in 1858, into Montblanc has added a lot of depth to the brand’s range of products. At Villeret, it’s all about traditional watchmaking, using traditional machine tools. The watches emerging from Villeret are priced much higher than those made at Montblanc’s other manufacturing unit in…
The Montblanc 1858 Automatic Dual Time, one of the three new watches presented in the 1858 collection available from April 2017, continues the brand’s smart marketing technique, offering watches with standard movements and simple complications at an attractive price. Coupled with good design and the world-wide familiarity of the Montblanc brand name, this is presumably…
1858, because in 2007, the Richemont Group purchased Minerva and assigned it to Montblanc. Minerva is a historical brand founded in 1858, and it developed a reputation for fine movements and in particular for chronographs. The 1858 collection was presented in October 2015 with two timepieces with a distinctly early pilot’s watch appearance, based on…
Montblanc‘s Bohème ExoTourbillon Slim 110 Years Anniversary is a 10-piece limited edition, reference 115939. It celebrates the 110th anniversary of fMontblanc’s foundation, and the serpent motif on the dial is based on the Rouge et Noir fountain pen which became a classic when it was introduced in 1906. Normally you think of Bulgari when the…
Women prefer watches with quartz movements because they don’t have to worry about setting the time and winding the watch? This is what many watch brands use as a convenient excuse when they make their women’s watches. Montblanc on the other hand is focusing on mechanical watches for women, introducing their ExoTourbillon complication that has…
For the first time, Montblanc introduces its in-house ExoTourbillon to the women’s Bohème collection. The dial of the ExoTourbillon Slim is in mother-of-pearl; the bezel is set with 58 diamonds (about 1.39 carats). The red gold case is 38 mm in diameter, and 9.37 mm thick, 3 bar water resistance. The watch has a black…
Montblanc has reacted fast to the advent of smart watches. The e-Strap is a small, discreet device that slides onto a standard watchstrap and pairs to a smartphone. It offers functions that include an activity tracker, notifications for incoming communications, remote controls for the phone’s camera and music player, and a system that allows you…
This watch by Montblanc, reference 112587, takes the sporty, accessible TimeWalker collection, mixes it with the sophisticated ExoTourbillon, adds the brand’s monopusher chronograph with semicircular counters, and blends it all with the latest high-tech materials. The result is a visually-satisfying watch with dynamic looks, one of the most surprising watches to be seen at the…
This Montblanc Twincounter watch looks like a chronograph with its two subdials, but in fact it has just the time functions plus date. Probably some people buy chronographs just because they like the look of the subdials. Perhaps Montblanc was thinking of this marketing aspect when designing this watch, in which there are two subdials,…
The Montblanc Heritage Chronométrie Chronograph Quantième Annuel, reference 114876, is an “annual calendar,” and so it takes the different lengths of months into account, but doesn’t keep count of leap years. It has to be adjusted once a year at the end of February. As for many of Montblanc’s watches, the steel version is aggressively…
With respect to the previous version of this watch, Montblanc Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum, this piece is much more attractive, with its colourful globe, and more expensive, €5,890 as compared to €4,990. The case has also been increased in size from 41 to 43 mm, and the caseband has a stepped profile. The world-time function…
Montblanc’s entry-level three-hand watch in the 4810 collection, presented in 2016, is competitively priced at €2,690. It is competing with brands such as Baume & Mercier with their Classima (which is about €600 cheaper). With respect to the previous versions of this watch, the bezel is narrower, and the minutes scale and SuperLuminova dots are…