At last year’s SIHH, Montblanc rolled out a totally redesigned 1858 collection all inspired by the idea of adventure and travel. There were one-of-a-kind watches, chronographs, a unique world timer, and even a crazy fake watch. This year is mainly about aesthetic updates, with familiar replica watches changed to bronze-green dials, but there’s one totally new watch being added to the watch collection, the 1858 Split Second Chronograph. The limited-edition looks very similar to the 1858 sports watch, however, what inside is a high-quality chronograph movement made in-house at Minerva.
The 1858 Split Second Chronograph is in fact more impressive than its name seems. It’s a monopusher split-seconds chronograph, it can be seen major evolution both in technology and aesthetics, comparing to the brand’s earlier high-end sports chronographs. This model has a bronze case that is 44mm in diameter and 14.55mm in thickness. Given this, the watch is rather big, but the case is well finished with brushed edges and polished facets on the lugs to give it a more exquisite touch.
Take a close look at the dial, you’ll notice many slight conferences. The slightly glossy black expanse has a detailed minutes and seconds track around the outer edge with red Arabic numerals every five minutes. What inside of that are luminous Arabic numerals for the hours, with a creamy beige color outlined in bright white to add some definition. In my point of view, I don’t think this has been overdone, but that’s a typical personal preference matter. There are two sub-dials, one for seconds and the other for the chronograph function, and a snail-shaped tachymeter scale in between them. The cathedral-style hands are definitely old-school in nature, but they work.
The only imperfection of the dial and hands has to be the two central chronograph hands – one is in gold and one is in silver. It’s kind of difficult to differentiate the two hands at a glance, which could impact the legibility of the Chrono. On the other hand, the look is extremely cohesive and low-key, but with enough personality to make the watch special too.
What makes Montblanc’s higher-end chronographs so remarkable is what’s inside of them: own-researched movements from Minerva. In case you don’t know, the historic chronograph specialists are part of fake Montblanc and produce marvelous calibers that can compete with the very best in the industry This specific fake watch is powered by the MB M16.31 – and what can I say, just look at it! The architecture is efficient, the steelwork exceedingly good, and the finishing gorgeous. Make sure you don’t miss the arrow-shaped tail on one of the chronograph levers (you can see it in the bottom photo above, just below the split mechanism).
