A five-day tourbillon, hemispheric universal time with selectable time zone and ultra-compact 24 cities indicator, hemispheric precision moon phase, jumping hours and retrograde minutes… a wealth of complications meet inside the 46-mm diameter, 18-mm high case of the Récital 18 – The Shooting Star.
This feast for the eyes begins at 6 o’clock, where the tourbillon completes one revolution per minute, thereby enabling a triple hand, placed under the tourbillon, to display the seconds on a tampoprinted graduation inside the crystal. Three blued masses, inspired by Bovet’s nineteenth-century pocket fake cheap watches, are positioned on the balance, which oscillates at 21,600 vib/hour. Twin barrels ensure an autonomy of five days.
Travelling north, our eyes take in the dial. The smaller hand indicates not the hours but power reserve. Instead, jumping hours are shown on a lacquered plate, just underneath. This digital display makes for easy reading of the time and also brings a modern feel to the Fake Swiss watch. Minutes are given by a retrograde hand.
Rendezvous at 9 o’clock to admire the moon phase display, where two circular apertures enable us to observe the age of the moon in the northern and southern hemispheres. Each globe is machined as a single piece. The moon’s craters are covered with a luminous white substance, while sky and space glow deep blue in the darkness. We end our tour by heading east, where the watchmakers at Bovet and at Manufacture Dimier 1738 have had the ingenious idea to represent the entire globe on a single half-sphere. First, though, a cartographer was commissioned to design this three-dimensional map. Every single time zone can thus be seen in one glance, thanks to the 24-hour ring that circles the globe. The second time zone is set simply by pressing the centre of the crown. With each press, the hand jumps by an angular value of 15°, corresponding to one time zone. Simultaneously, the roller advances to display the corresponding city.
