Like every year, Baume & Mercier offers an exclusive timepiece, enriching the Clifton collection. This year, the new Clifton Perpetual Calendar is added to this line that reinterprets the watchmaking complications like the flying tourbillon or the 5-minute repeater.
The new Clifton Perpetual Calendar honors the astronomical observation and the celestial mechanics. Nestled within a stunning 18K red gold case, this mechanism negotiates all the particularities of the Gregorian calendar with its 31, 30 or 28-day months and the periodic return of February 29th. The perpetual calendar is a symbol of human ingenuity for tracking the earth and its moon as they orbit within the solar system. By indicating the date, the day of the week, the month and the phases of the moon and by automatically keeping track of the variable length of each month and the cycle of leap years, this Clifton Perpetual Calendar does not require any date correction before the 1st of March 2100, a non leap year that appears three centuries out of four.
To keep track of all the variations of the calendar, the Clifton Perpetual Calendar is thus endowed with a «mechanical memory» of 1461 days, the equivalent of four years, which animates the self-winding Vaucher 5401 movement within the watch, designed from a Dubois Depraz 5100 Module. The elegant finishings of the calibre include the Côtes de Genève on the bridges, stippling on the bottom plate and blued steel screws. The micro-rotor, which makes it possible to pare down the movement for a case that is barely 4.2 mm thick, is decorated with the brand’s Phi symbol and a snailed decor.
Ticking away at 21,600 vibrations/hour for a power reserve of 48 hours, this finely finished calibre can be admired through the sapphire crystal back of the elegant 42 mm case in 18K red gold with carefully drawn curves. Display side, the new Clifton Perpetual Calendar captivates by its simplicity: topped with a sapphire “chevé” crystal for better readability, its silvered opaline domed dial is stylish and classic, complemented by numerals and stamped indexes in 18K red gold, while the blued hands indicate the watch’s calendar functions. The date appears at 3 o’clock, the days of the week at 9 o’clock while the months and the leap years appear at 12 o’clock.
