Marcus Hanke
[PuristSPro Moderator]
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A review of the UN GMT Big Date 42mm
Ulysse Nardin GMT +- 42mm
reviewed by
Marcus Hanke
Whenever the question arises about the best watch offering a second time zone display, short: GMT watch (which is of course a grossly misleading designation, since a “GMT watch” is nothing else but a watch showing the Greenwich Mean Time), only a brand few names are quoted. However, before I should point out a fact that is too often overlooked by those showing interest in such a timepiece: On the market, there are basically two types of watches indicating a second time zone: I use to call these
a) stay-at-home-watches, and
b) go-to-another-place-watches.
Most of the “GMT watches” offered on the markets are falling into the first category. They normally have either a second hour hand, rotating once very 24 hours, or a rotating bezel ring, indicating 24 cities, exemplary for the world’s 24 time zones. Consequently, these watches are more or less useful showing the time on another place in the world. This might be helpful preventing its wearer to call his business partner in Los Angeles or Singapore out from the bed (which could somehow compromise the profitable fusion the shareholders are eager to see). The various “world-timers” with the 24 city names are the least useful instruments, due to the menace of the “daylight saving time”, short: DST. During the summer months, many countries advance their clocks for an hour. Originally, this trick was introduced during the first oil crisis in the Seventies, with experts and politicians hoping that a lot of energy could be saved by a better use of the sunlight hours. As a matter of fact, the desired effect never materialised, but the summery change of the hour remained.
What makes the mechanical world timers so useless is the fact, that nearly every state uses a different date to start and end its DST. Additionally, within the same time zone, there are states - especially Muslim states - that do not have the DST at all. Sometimes, even within national borders, there are provinces that chose not to adopt DST (see Canada or the United States). Consequently, the times displayed by the well-known city or time zone rings are completely wrong during most of the year. For more information, perfectly illustrating the somewhat chaotic practice around the nice theory of the 24 time zones, please see:
en.wikipedia.org
www.webexhibits.org
A simple, additional hour hand that can be set to show the time in one other place is the more practical tool here, compared with the city name ring. The latter, though, looks good, which is - we have to admit - often the more important factor.
The basic flaw of these “stay-at-home”-watches becomes apparent in the moment when its wearer undertakes a journey leading him into another time zone. Just as the wearer of any other, non-GMT watch, he has to pull out the crown and reset the main hands, adjusting them to the local time. Since an atomic clock as a reference often is not at hand in this situation, the watch automatically loses its accurately adjusted time. The separate 24 hours hands is of no use here, unless it is set now to show the time at home.
Much better are the true “go-to-another-place”-watches. On a continent-hopping trip, these watches have their finest hour(s): With either a twist on their crown, or by pushing a button, the main hour hand can be adjusted to the local time in jumps of an hour. this works easy, and - most important - does not affect the accurately set time in any way, since the minute hand does not move, and the movement continues running.
There are only a few watches and movements on the market offering this capability, which for me is an absolute MUST for a real travel watch. But even there we find some important technical differences. Those watches that use the crown to set the main hour hand in hour jumps, normally have to sacrifice another function, that originally used this crown position: the quick-setting of the date. So whenever the date has to be set manually, after a longer time of the watch having stored away, for example, the date can only be set by moving the hands around the dial long enough. This is hardly a practical way, even if some permit at least a quicker setting, by moving the hour hand between the 21 (9 p.m.) and 1 o’clock positions. Additionally, some of these watches do not permit the date of being set backwards, which is necessary when the international date line is crossed during the trip.
Having said all that, it is time to present the watch that solved all these problems. Unbelievable, that it is on the market already since more than ten years, and until now, no other watch was able to completely replicate its functionality!
After Ludwig Oechslin, famous genius watchmaker and scientist, developed the astronomical “Trilogy of Time” and the perpetual calendar “Ludwig”, he was asked to think about a GMT watch, that could be set to any time zone, quickly and conveniently, without having to take it off the wrist. The result was a typically Oechslin development, that was practical and did not clutter the watch’s overall design.
Part of the original patent drawings
Two pushers in the case sides serve to quickly adjust the main hour hand, while a window showing the figures 1 to 24 indicates the time at home. Oechslin deliberately chose the system with the additional window, since a watch with two hour hands would need an additional night/day indicator.
The first version of the watch, called “GMT+-“, was released with a conventional date window at 3. Very soon, however, this was replaced with the “GMT+- Big Date”, featuring another Oechslin patent, a two-disk big date.
Early version of Ulysse Nardin's GMT watch
Due to its unique construction, even this big date can be set forward and backward. This model is a real old-timer in the Ulysse Nardin program, and a best-seller, too. A large number of variants, with different sizes, case materials and dials, have been manufactured. Since some two years, a slightly larger version, with a case diameter of 42mm, and a small second is available; this is the version I chose to write a quick review on here:
Case, crown and crystal:
In its basic shape, the GMT’s case design has left unchanged since its first introduction. Especially the conspicuous, curved crown guards are dominating the appearance, besides the two pushers for the change of the hour indication, of course. While they are practical for the protection of the crown stem, beyond doubt, in my eyes these crown guards always have similarities with warts. I think this watch deserves a more elegant case design, without crown guards at all, or some that, while offering similar protection, are less dominating.
The two pushers are placed in a way that they can be easily activated while the watch is on the wrist. The first version of the GMT, with the small date window, had them located on opposite positions on the case. This proved to be unpractical, since whenever either the thumb or the index finger was used to press one pusher, the other finger would be used to compensate this pressure on the opposite case side, and of course press the other pusher there as well. The activation of both pushers at the same time of course has some potential of damage to the mechanics, and consequently, this layout was changed.
A slightly domed sapphire crystal on the top, and a flat one on the back complement the case, while the crown has the nice blue enamel top showing the brand’s anchor logo, and protected by a piece of sapphire.
Dial and hands:
Traditionally, dials and hands are among Ulysse Nardin’s strengths, and this watch is no exception: The silverplated dial shows a light sunray pattern, stretching to the twelve-edged, lightly raised frame on the rim. The applied hourmarkers are very complex metal parts, shaped somehow like a fork, or the tail of a swallow. They uniquely combine brushed, polished and heat-blued surfaces, and are worth to be studied under a loupe.
Each hourmarker has a corresponding rectangular luminous dot on the frame, with the minute markers also printed on that frame. the small second has a circular pattern, and is framed by a raised and angled dark blue ring, also applied to the dial surface. Finally, the anchor logo, that normally is polished, is heat-blued, too, and the window of the second time zone (home time) is perfectly polished.
The heat-blued hands have luminous mass generously applied to them, which makes the watch highly legible at night. Typically for UN, the hands have perfectly polished edges and surfaces.
Movement:
Since its introduction, Ulysse Nardin’s patented GMT mechanism is based on the trusted ETA 2892A2 movement. Ever since the presentation of the indigenous cal. 160 with the Dual Ulysse movement, there were speculations that very soon, this radically new manufacture movement would soon become the new base of the GMT watch. While these speculations were never denied by UN officials, we have yet to see such a new watch. Until then, the current movement/module combination, dubbed cal. UN-22, will continue to serve as rugged and reliable engine, even if it is not very beautiful. The blue galvanisation of the rotor, visible through the displayback is an effort to make the sight more attractive, but I admit to have preferred the former solid caseback, showing the winged San Marco lion.
The new 42mm version now has an indirectly driven small second, similar to that of the Marine Chronometers and Divers. This means that a slight stutter of the second hand is possible, due to the air between the teeth of the intermediary wheels. But this is rarely observable, due to the hand’s shortness.
Strap and clasp:
The 42mm GMT+- has a width between the lugs of 21mm, somehow limiting the choice of aftermarket straps. The bigger strap manufacturers do accept orders for custom-made straps, though, so getting 21mm straps is not impossible. Other than that, Ulysse Nardin is itself offering a nice range of straps in different colours, to replace the thickly padded, dark-blue alligator strap, coming with the watch. On the strap’s other end we find the new and highly comfortable stainless steel double folding clasp with a width of 18mm.
Legibility:
When Ludwig Oechslin created his GMT mechanism, he wanted a dial that should by no means be cluttered by a manifold of indications. Therefore, he opted for the small window showing the 24 hours/time zones, resulting in a very clean dial layout. However, this is hardly intuitive to read, I have to admit. Normally, the home time should be read like a regulator, or jumping hour display: You first look at the hour window, then on the minute hand, adding the minutes to the hours. However, when the watch shows, for example, five minutes to nine, a brief glimpse on the hometime window, showing “17”, would lead to the intuitive conclusion that at home, it is five minutes to five p.m. But this is wrong, since the home time hour switches only at the full hour. Replacing the window with a 24 hours hand, either from the centre, or in a separate subdial, as it was done on the GMT Perpetual and the Sonata, does not really improve this situation. So reading the GMT+- abroad demands a certain discipline and thinking from its wearer, but with some experience, this should not be a real problem.
A more relevant issue, although one the GMT +- has in common with practically all mechanical GMT watches on the market, is the lack of a half hour setting, which would need a second minute hand. I concede that people travelling to the Simpson Desert in Australia would not be numerous enough to justify the development of a half hour capable time zone mechanism. And I hope the inhabitants of the city of Darwin will forgive me when I consider their number not large enough for such a development, too. Yet the Iran, which also has a half hour step within its time zone, is, given its importance in the region, a more probable candidate for such a mechanism. However, the current political situation might cause the responsible watch company CEOs to hesitate. But nobody will convince me that the whole Indian sub-continent is so unimportant economically and demographically, that it can be completely ignored by all the manufacturers of “travelling watches” with second timezone displays!
Having said that, the perfect two timezones-watch, vulgo GMT watch should have two independently operative dials, with both hour and minute hands, with an adjustment of the second timezone in half hour-increments. So while the GMT+- as a GMT watch might not be absolutely perfect, it is nethertheless still the very best and user-friendly on the market, and I sincerely hope it will continue its reliable service to the world-travelling community.
Copyright September 2008 - Marcus Hanke & PuristSPro.com - all rights reserved
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A review of the UN GMT Big Date 42mm
Ulysse Nardin GMT +- 42mm reviewed by Marcus Hanke Whenever the question arises about the best watch offering a second time zone display, short: GMT watch (which is of course a grossly misleading designation, since a “GMT watch” is nothing else but a watc...
Thanks for the reviee Marcus
I like the clean and simple design of this GMT. I am relieved there are no Sonata-style hands. ;-) - SJX
Great review, Marcus
The UN GMT is one of the more friendly GMT I know, and yes, I'd l:ove ot see a new UN GMT using an in house movement, a special one; like the one in the 160 Anniversary. Thanks for this very nice and informative review, Marcus! Best, my friend. Nicolas
The rumours about a cal. 160-based GMT ....
... are persisting, and it would seem very logical to make the GMT complication the first to be used with the new movement. Regards, Marcus
U.N already used this new movement with
The Sonata, Marcus? Yes, it would be normal to use it on simpler watches, indeed. Can't wait to see what will be presented!!! Best, Dracula.LOL Nicolas
An insightful review from our most itinerant moderator . . .
. . . and comprehensively written, too . . . I've never been much for the traveler's watch genre because I'm ensconced in So Cal, so your explanation was most illuminating, Marcus. There was a thread a few years back comparing the merits of various perpet...
Independent Second Time Zones
Hi Marcus That was a lovely review. I just wanted to add that there are three watchbrands that cater to the half-hour setting in the second time zone functionality. In fact the setting can be even at a 1 minute difference owing to the fact the minute hand...
Good review, Marcus. I suppose I will have to wait a while..
for a GMT review with caliber 160
I am sorry, but maybe a review on the Sonata Silicium ...
... will help over the waiting time. However, you will have to wait another month for that one, too. Regards, Marcus
Thanks Marcus, you rock on your reviews! This is one of my best
travel watches and seems to miss all the knocks and nicks I get on other travel watches, very bulletproof. Best, Tim
Markus, I highly enjoyed this review (and had a sad memory...)
Markus Not only did I learn about horological aspects of this UN GMT I also learned about the background of DST which I wasn’t so far aware of. I never actually questioned the DST. I love the applied hour markers on this UN. I find them both elegant and f...