Last year, Baume & Mercier presented the Clifton Baumatic collection, which combines the brand's watchmaking heritage with mechanical innovation, resulting for instance in the self-winding in-house calibre Baumatic BM12-1975A.
New models have been released in 2019, to further demonstrate the horological prowess of the maison, founded in 1830 in the Swiss Jura.
The Baumatic BM13-1975AC-1 movement with a perpetual calendar module drives an exceptional timepiece to win over aficionados of grand complications.
The Clifton Baumatic Perpetual Calendar indicates the date, the day of the week, the month and the phases of the moon while automatically taking into account the variable lengths of months and the leap year cycle -- requiring no date correction before March 1, 2100.
Three counters are reserved to the perpetual calendar: the first at 9 o'clock for the day of the week, the second at 12 o'clock for the month and leap-year cycle, and the third at 3 o'clock for the date.
The design highlights a warm white porcelain finish of the dial, enhanced by faceted riveted hour markers and gold-tone hour, minute and seconds hands.
The blued hands accentuate the calendar functions, and the moon-phase indication appears at 6 o'clock.
The grand complication is housed in a 42mm satin-finished red-gold case, whose sapphire crystal on the back displays the movement with an openworked, gold-plated oscillating weight adorned with a decoration combining Côtes de Genève with snailing.
Within the calibre, the lyre is shaped like the Greek phi character, Baume & Mercier's symbol for perfection. The self-winding movement offers reliability through a five-day power reserve and resistance to the main magnetic fields of daily life.
Likewise, the movement of the Clifton Baumatic models is revealed through the sapphire crystal caseback.
The elegant watch family now includes five new members, as Baume & Mercier has added a red gold case and a gradated blue dial to the design.
The dial has an oversized date aperture positioned at 3 o'clock, and is topped with a domed antiglare sapphire crystal to ensure better readability.
A discreet anthracite crosshair on the dial symbolises which models are certified by the COSC (Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute).
For instance, a cadran bleu COSC model is presented in a 40mm stainless steel case, whose dial features a blue-to-black gradated sunburst pattern, contrasted by a white minute track and rhodium-plated hands.
The red gold COSC version is slightly smaller at 39mm with the dial having a warm white hue and a porcelain-effect finish and its anthracite seconds hand contrasting with the gold hour and minute hands, for an elegant look.
