Hands-on with the new Montblanc TimeWalker World-Time Hemisphere

A world-timer is perhaps the most practical complication of modern time. We travel around the world, our friends and sometimes also family life in different time zones. It’s just one step before we need migrate to the moon and need a star timer, so for now a good world-timer will do. 

Montblanc understood the necessity of world-timers and two entirely new models. Let me introduce the Montblanc TimeWalker World-Time Hemisphere, which comes in two flavors; the Northern Hemisphere with a silver-coloured dial and the Southern Hemisphere with a grey dial.

Some months ago I bought a small desk clock. Not just a desk clock but one that indicates the times on all the world’s time zones in one view. Since Monochrome welcomed a few contributors, I noticed how hard it is to stay in good contact with each other and not accidentally wake someone during the few precious hours of sleep.

Having that same functionality on the wrist is of course even better. Last year IWC introduced the Pilot’s Watch Worldtimer, however that has an entirely different price tag as the new TimeWalker World-Time Hemisphere, which has a starting price of € 3.790 Euro (including taxes).

It comes in the well-known ergonomically shaped TimeWalker case, with its very nicely designed skeleton lugs, narrow bezel and spacious dial and measures 43 mm in diameter.

On my wrist is the Northern Hemisphere model (ref. 108955) with a silver-coloured dial showing our planet as seen from the north pole. The local time in the zone where the wearer is currently sojourning is shown by the central hands, while the flange around the dial bears the names of 24 cities, each of which represents one of the 24 time zones into which our planet is divided. A 24-hour disc indicating the hours at the locations on the flange, turns at the centre of the dial. In one view you can see the local time and the time in all 24 time zones around the world, and also immediately knowing whether it’s day or night in a certain time zone!

Additionally to the Northern Hemisphere, Montblanc has enriched another model with the view on the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere has a grey-tone dial with orange accents and shows the continents with the south pole in its center. Besides the different color-scheme, the Southern Hemisphere model comes on a stainless steel bracelet and, of course, shows only southern hemisphere cities on the flange.

The Northern Hemisphere model, with silver-dcoloured dial, only features cities located on the northern hemisphere and comes on a black embossed calfskin strap with blue stitching.

The ‘city-ring’ is immobile, however the 24-hour discs in the center turns in opposite directions on the two versions of the TimeWalker World-Time Hemisphere: the disc turns clockwise on the Northern Hemisphere watch, it bears a 24-hour scale labelled anti-clockwise; the 24-hour disc on the Southern Hemisphere timepiece turns anti-clockwise and bears a 24-hour scale labelled clockwise. This means that the movement is adapted to these different rotations of the 24-hour disc.

To  keep an eye on the entire planet, from east to west and from north to south, the Northern Hemisphere watch bears the southern place names on its case back and vice versa. A date window is positioned above the 6 o’clock position.

More information can be found on the Montblanc website. Later we will show you LIVE photos of the other TimeWalker models featuring a second time zone.

This article is written by Frank Geelen, executive editor for Monochrome Watches.