Vacheron Constantin

Something I would like to see from Vacheron Constantin

 

Vacheron Constantin hit a home run with the Patrimony Traditionnelle World Time watch. It is technically innovative and interesting, as well as beautifully conceived in design and well finished in execution. It can account for the 37 time zones currently being used in the world today, and can be modified in the future to any deviations from current practice should they come about.

The only downside of the World Time watch is that it cannot account for the vagaries of daylight savings: the watch can read the correct local time but miss by an hour during the savings interval. C’est la vie.

A classically designed GMT watch, on the other hand, makes a different tradeoff, allowing one to read the time in other zones regardless of daylight savings, though it cannot if they are offset by either a 15 or 30 minutes from the GMT reference, forcing some mental calculations on the user.

Vacheron Constantin has had some interesting dual time zone watches in production in recent years. One of the most popular was the Malte Dual Time Regulator, which not only provided a unique time display with the regulator format, but also indicated a second time zone in the subdial at 9 o’clock:


On top of it all, the watch was a COSC certified Chronometer, using the VC Calibre 1206, from the double barreled Piguet caliber 1150, with module by Vacheron Constantin.

More recently, Vacheron Constantin has used the JLC based 929 movement in both the Malte Tonneau Dual Time and Overseas Dual Time, calling this ebauche caliber 1222


In these watches, the second zone is read in a subdial at 6 o’clock, the power reserve is at 10 o’clock, and pointer date in a subdial at 2 o’clock.

The Malte Dual Time Regulator, Malte Tonneau Dual Time, and Overseas Dual Time are good looking watches, but they all share a characteristic that I find less user friendly than is my ideal. I would prefer that subdials show the home time (on a 24 hour scale) while the main hour and minute hands show local time, like with the Rolex GMT Master II or Ulysse Nardin Dual Time, and that the local time can be quickly changed, either from crown operations (like the Rolex) or through pushers on the case (like the UN), while holding the home time steady.

Another feature that I like in GMT designs is the ability to run the date backwards when correcting the local time as when traveling West to East over the international date line (though to date I have never done this myself).

With the expected revamping of the Overseas collection with in-house movements hopefully not too far in the future, my keenest desire is for there to be a GMT model that operates in the manner described above.

Bill
VC Forum Moderator