They are not a dial feature one sees much anymore, even though in their twenty-first century manifestations, as opposed to their ones of almost a century ago, there was a time when there was the occasional ‘red 12’ dial as a special release, most notably by A. Lange & Söhne.

Today we bring you the new Moritz Grossmann ENAMEL ROMAN Vintage, which features a ‘red 12’, gives a ‘vintage’ nod to the 1930s for which this feature is most associated, and gives it a modern twirl with the choice of dial colour.

Created to mark sixteen years of the Moritz Grossmann manufactory, the ENAMEL ROMAN Vintage limited edition has, as the name indicates, a black enamel dial, in a 41mm white gold case with a white gold crown, and a thickness of 11.35mm. With a short pull on the winding crown, the mechanism switches to hand setting and stops the movement at the same time. The crown immediately returns to its original position, where the hands can now be precisely adjusted. The movement is then restarted using a pusher situated below the winding crown. This simultaneously resets the mechanism to its winding function.

These dials have traditionally been white enamel with either Roman or Arabic numerals, even in their modern form, but this new model’s black enamel dial with Roman numerals in white and the twelve XII in red puts it firmly in this century. Another positional (both within the brand and overall is the use of the historic ‘M.Grossmann’ logo, which is also enamel. It is applied through pad printing before the firing process. The hands for both the main dial and the seconds sub dial (which has a stop seconds) are polished steel.

Powering the ENAMEL ROMAN Vintage is the in-house manually-wouned Calibre 100.1, a movement with the pillars and classic two-thirds plate with horizontal ribbing made from untreated German silver, the plate featuring hand-engraved text. The curved cut-out reveals the Grossmann balance and a stepped, hand-engraved balance cock and escape-wheel cock. It beats at 18,800 VPH and has a power reserve of 42 hours.

Coming on a black alligator strap with a white gold buckle, the Moritz Grossmann ENAMEL ROMAN Vintage watch model is limited to eight pieces and has an Australian RRP of $111,000 (including GST).

[Photo credit: Moritz Grossmann]

Categories: German watches, Limited Editions, Moritz Grossmann, Watch Profile, watches