HANDS-ON: The Montblanc Twincounter Date, if you don’t like date windows you should date this watch

Felix Scholz

Montblanc produce a wide range of watches, from mass consumer-friendly time-only pieces all the way up to their top-of-the-tree Villeret collection. While each price-point is more than holding its own in the current day, with CEO Jerome Lambert injecting more value and excitement than ever before, the sweet spot in Montblanc’s line-up in my opinion is the Heritage Chronometrie collection. It’s here that you’ll find timepieces such as their impressive perpetual calendar, as well as the Dual Time and the Complete Calendar.

The Heritage Chronometrie watches are defined not only by their classic, predominantly mid-century styling, but also by the clever implementation of their complications. The Twincounter Date, released at SIHH, is a great example of this. Rather than use the common (and so-often poorly done) date window, the Twincounter displays the date in a subdial at three, balancing it out with a seconds hand at nine. As a result, the Twincounter Date is one of the most handsome time and date models I’ve seen in a long time.

Of course this isn’t just down to the placement of subdials. The overall design of the dial is crisp and clean. The silver starburst, with gold hands and applied indices creates a smart look, and the use of numerals at six and 12, as well as the blued hands for the seconds and date keep things interesting. It’s also a pleasingly symmetrical dial, and one that’s easy to anthropomorphise, in that, those twin counters give it a cute face. Paired with the well-sized 40mm wide and 9.85mm high case this Montblanc a great option for daily suit duty.

Montblanc have taken a very formal, conservative type of watch, and reinterpreted it with a sense of fun. You can’t help but smile when you check the time on the Twincounter Date.

Montblanc Heritage Chronometrie Twincounter Date Australian pricing

The Twincounter Date has an RRP of $4430 on leather and $4950 on a steel bracelet.