The Clean and Accessible Junghans Meister Chronoscope Gets a Cool Green Dial

Junghans, a German brand specialising in accessible luxury watches, is all about minimalist designs and Bauhaus inspirations. But that doesn’t mean these watches are simple. In fact, the beauty of the timepieces manufactured by Junghans often comes from a sophisticated elegance resulting from their minimalism. Mostly known for the Max Bill collection, named after the famous Swiss designer commissioned by Junghans to design a kitchen clock, we have a certain predilection here at MONO for the Meister collection. And there’s a new member coming, with the Junghans Meister Chronoscope Green Dial. 

Founded in 1861 by Erhard Junghans in Schramberg (Black Forest), at a certain point in its history, the brand was the largest manufacturer of clocks in the world. Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th century, Junghans was producing a staggering three million timepieces a year. And thanks to this favourable situation, Junghans was able to hire some of the best designers around to perpetuate the rational, understated German aesthetic that marks the brand’s products. Designers like Max Bill (a child of the Bauhaus school of design) or Anton Ziegler, known as the watch architect behind many of the brand’s emblematic designs, including the creation of the Meister collection during the 1930s, were invited.

This collection of watches with a deceptively simple design doesn’t hide its vintage roots. The reason behind this collection was simple: to reduce the volume of the watch to create more elegant timepieces in spite of the relatively thick movement. And, when you look at the Junghans Meister Chronoscope, a watch equipped with an automatic chronograph that has nothing of an ultra-thin movement, you can see that the visual magic is still operating.

The Junghans Meister Chronoscope is a fairly large, modern-sized watch. Housed in a case made of polished stainless steel, it measures a contemporary 40.7mm in diameter, for a height of 13.9mm that, just like the movement, can hardly be qualified as thin. Yet, like most of the watches from the Meister collection, there is undeniable slenderness to this watch, despite the heavy mechanics. The trick used in the mid-century watches is the same: an almost inexistent bezel, a steeply domed sapphire crystal and caseback, both absorbing most of the thickness, and a thin-walled case that progressively tapers off to create pointy edges. The case of this Meister Chronoscope Green is equipped with sapphire crystal on top and a screwed caseback with mineral see-through glass. Water-resistance is rated at 50 metres.

This new edition of the Junghans Meister Chronoscope is characterised by its new fir green-coloured dial. While the brand has been strong on neutral colours (silvery-white, black or grey), we’ve recently seen more colours appearing on these minimalist watches. Think PVD-gold case with blue dial, and now green with macchiato-coloured accents, to be found on the sub-dial hands. This doesn’t detract from the Bauhaus inspiration but gives more sophistication to this usually austere collection. The dial retains its domed profile and the bowl-like sub-counters – with the cool effect created by this succession of convex and concave surfaces. The hands and markers are polished and rhodium-plated, and thin luminous inserts can be found on the main hands. A day-date window sits classically at 3 o’clock.

Under the hood is a no-nonsense movement, the calibre J880.1, or in other words, a Valjoux/ETA 7750. This automatic chronograph beats at 28,800 vibrations/hour and stores up to 48h of energy. Easy to service and known for its robustness, it is presented with light decoration on the bridges and rotor.

Adding to the cool factor, the Green Junghans Meister Chronoscope is worn on a beige ostrich leather strap with a stainless steel pin buckle. Thie beige colour of the strap creates a nice link between the strap and the subsidiary hands on the dial.

Availability & Price

The Junghans Meister Chronoscope Green Dial will be part of the permanent collection and will be available for orders in June 2022. It will be priced at EUR 2,040. For more details, please www.junghans.de.