The Beautiful Moritz Grossmann Date Turquoise

As everybody has noticed, colour has become the new protagonist on the watch scene, making it harder and harder to pin down the current colour du jour. From blue to green, or even purple and pink – and everything in between – colourful dials are the big thing. When it comes to turquoise dials, Moritz Grossmann‘s latest Date model radiates an undeniable wow factor generated by mixing a traditional guilloché pattern with a vivid tone of turquoise that evokes the colours of tropical waters. Presented in a steel case and limited to 18 pieces, the Moritz Grossmann Date Turquoise with its peripheral jumping date display is a beautiful fusion of tradition and modernity.

Old and New

Moritz Grossmann is a fascinating niche brand based in Glashütte, the cradle of refined German watchmaking, producing around 300 watches annually. Moritz Grossmann also happens to be one of the oldest and youngest players on the Glashütte block. It is one of the oldest because Moritz Grossmann was one of the founding fathers of Glashütte’s proud Saxon watchmaking tradition. In 1854, his friend Ferdinand Adolop Lange persuaded him to set up his workshop in Glashütte. It is also one of the youngest because the brand was revived in 2008 by Christine Hutter. Renowned for its impressive handcrafted finishings and its commitment to Schönstes Deutsches Handwerk (the most beautiful German craftsmanship), the brand has also demonstrated incredible technical prowess and developed 16 in-house calibres since its revival.

The Date model, till now available in white and rose gold cases, returns with an eye-catching turquoise dial and a stainless steel case. By combining the traditional decorative craft of guilloché with a contemporary colour, the dial becomes a beautiful synthesis of old and new. Made in collaboration with Kari Voutilainen’s dial manufacturer, Comblémine in Switzerland’s Val-de-Travers, the exquisite guilloché work on the dial is handmade using a rose lathe machine that requires great ability to ensure consistent depth and spacing between the lines. The wave pattern that radiates from the centre of the small seconds counter at 6 o’clock increases in size as it spans across the dial creating a mesmerising rippling effect. The pattern engraved on the solid silver dial and sub-dial is treated with a special coating and diamond-polished to a high gloss, creating a dynamic interplay of subtle, ever-changing and iridescent shades of turquoise.

Date displays are relatively recent complications and began to appear at the start of the 20^th century on wristwatches. In 1915, watchmaker A. Hammerly patented his pointer date function that relied on a central hand to point to the date printed on the periphery of the dial. The Moritz Grossmann Date also uses a peripheral date, but instead of a sweep hand, it has incorporated a bracket-shaped date marker that moves along the ring and frames the current date. On this Turquoise Date model, the date marker is picked out in annealed blue to match the needle-thin lance-shaped hands, all crafted by hand and finished in Moritz Grossmann’s manufacture. The numerals corresponding to the date from 1-31 are also blue and printed on the periphery of the dial.

The beautiful turquoise guilloché dial is framed by a brushed silver ring with larger dots representing the hours and smaller dots for the minutes, a pattern that is also used for the circular frame of the small seconds counter. Thanks to the extremely slim bezel, there is plenty of breathing room on the dial.

Steel Case

Housed in a 41mm polished stainless steel case with a height of 11.85mm, the Moritz Grossmann Date Turquoise is equipped with an additional crown at 10 o’clock and a pusher at 4 o’clock. The crown at 10 o’clock is the date-setting crown; by pulling it out, you can change the date in either direction at any time of the day without stopping the movement.

The small pusher on the caseband at 4 o’clock corresponds to Grossmann’s in-house crown-and-pusher mechanism. Like conventional manual-winding watches, the crown is used to wind the watch. However, if the crown is pulled out to set the time, it automatically springs back to its original position activating the stop-seconds mechanism to allow precision time setting. Once the time is set to the exact hour, minute and second, you have to press the conical pusher, which reactivates the movement and resets the crown to winding mode. The reasons behind this ingenious and extremely easy-to-use safety mechanism are to avoid dust entering the case via the crown, to minimise wear and tear on the keyless works, and to prevent moving the hands unintentionally when pushing the crown back into place.

Calibre 100.3

The view from the caseback of the Moritz Grossmann Date Turquoise showcases the artistic finishings of the in-house manual-winding movement. Calibre 100.3 with jumping date is based on the calibre 100.1 and is a pillar movement with a 2/3 plate. All the components are crafted in-house, including the Grossmann balance, train wheels, stopwork, escapement and oscillator. In keeping with the brand’s philosophy of Schönstes Deutsches Handwerk , the finishings are exquisite.The 2/3 plate is made from German silver and decorated with broad Glashütte ribbing, and all the inscriptions on the plate and balance cock are made by hand.

The white sapphire-bearing jewels are set in gold chatons secured with violet annealed pan-head screws, and the ratchet wheel is decorated with three-band snailing. These raised chatons were inspired by historic Grossmann pocket watches and make it possible to remove and clean the bearing jewels individually without damaging the plate. The gold-plated Grossman balance wheel is held in position with a beautiful cantilevered hand-engraved balance cock and escape-wheel cock. Even the concealed parts of the Grossmann winder with pusher – which can be removed separately – are finished with hand-polished chamfers. Beating at a stately 18,000vph, the movement has a 42-hour power reserve.

Availability & Price

The Moritz Grossmann Date Turquoise is fitted with a black hand-stitched crocodile leather strap with a stainless steel prong buckle. The watch is limited to 18 pieces worldwide and retails for EUR 42,500.

For more information, please visit Grossmann-uhren.com.