Not being one to offer up throw-away comments to the watch fan, I said that the SIHH 2018 was a year of “reasonableness” (The Watches TV has me on record, so there is no backing out for me) and I intend to prove it in my continued coverage of the show. So when looking at the new Montblanc Star Legacy collection I will be concentrating not on the 98,000 euro Suspended Exo-Tourbillon (luckily we already covered this top-of-the-range piece) but on the other end of the spectrum, starting with the reasonably priced Montblanc Star Legacy Automatic Date, available from €2,690 in steel with a leather bracelet. What is important to note is that, whether you are paying a tenth of the price of a mid-size family saloon car or four times the price, every model in the Star Legacy collection has a unified design theme that means you are buying in, in however small and abstract a way, to 160 years of watchmaking history at Minerva. The cases are therefore round with curved sides, the lugs stepped and the crowns over-sized and in the “onion” style, just like they were on the very first pocket watches that came out of the Minerva workshops in Villeret, Switzerland.
If you watched the video I linked to above in full, you will have noted that my use of the term “reasonableness” was not restricted to price alone, but to design, too. Montblanc bears this out by offering the entry-level automatic date models in the collection in thoroughly reasonable sizes of 39mm and 42mm – the range that seems to be the new sweet-spot for universal horological appeal and a size that is maintained from the base of the Star Legacy pyramid through the moon phase and complete calendar models up to the chronograph. The base of the pyramid must, by definition, be wide enough to support its peak, so there is a total of thirteen different references of the entry-level automatic date, all but one of them with an ivory dial with “exploding star” guilloché pattern at the centre. The case for these ivory-dialled models comes in 18-carat rose gold (€6,970), steel and gold (€3,950) or stainless-steel, matched with alligator leather straps in black, brown or blue, as well as a stainless-steel bracelet (€2,990 but sadly not depicted in any of the press photos). The sole model with a slate-grey dial is paired with a grey “Sfumato” alligator leather strap and is arguably the most contemporary design here.
The Star Legacy Moonphase comes in similar variations, although the dial is silvery-white rather than ivory and only the 42mm case diameter is available. There are a total of six references in this line with the stainless-steel or steel-gold case and a choice of leather straps or steel bracelet. For the Star Legacy full calendar, the choice is restricted to just one model in stainless steel with the silvery-white dial and a blue “Sfumato” alligator leather strap. The same restriction applies to the Star Legacy Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph, which comes in the same classic lines with a stainless-steel case, silvered dial and blue leather strap. At €7,450 this is competitively priced for an in-house chronograph movement. The Montblanc Manufacture Calibre MB R200 has special toothing for more efficient power transmission to drive those distinctive discs that hark back to the invention of Nicolas Rieussec, which Montblanc now refers to as the “first patented chronograph” after it was discovered that Louis Moinet had produced a pocket chronograph five years before Rieussec.
See all the 2018 Montblanc Star Legacy models below
