It’s hard to believe that the Baltic MR collection first debuted over four years ago with the MR01 in late 2021. At the time it was regarded as the watch that pushed the French brand into the cultural zeitgeist of the collector-sphere, which is largely where they have stayed since. No longer were they a one-trick accessible dive watch brand, they also produced dress watches and later down the line field watches as well. But now that first generation is set to be discontinued in order to make way for a second generation similar to how they recently updated the Aquascaphe with the Mk2. Which brings us to today and the launch of the final edition of the MR (for now), the MR Moissanite.
Originally conceived as a one-off or concept design, it proved so popular in development that they decided to pull the rip cord and produce it as a limited edition of 200 pieces. Available in both the Classic and Roulette styles (Breguet numerals for the former, sector display for the latter), it takes the dressy design of the MR and turns it up to 11 with the introduction of a gem-set bezel.
The gems in question are lab-grown moissanites, a diamond-like gemstone of silicon carbide. The gems are almost as hard as the more prestigious diamond while being more accessible (even in comparison to lab-grown diamonds) and in some opinions more beautiful due to their brightness and rainbow-like flashes as light passes through. As a brief historical tangent, artificial moissanites were actually produced two years before the first naturally occurring stones were discovered (1891 and 1893 respectively) because in nature they are most commonly associated with meteors and crater sites, making them exceedingly rare – though the name moissanite comes from Henri Moissan, who was the man to find those first natural stones.
On the MR Moissanite, they’re paired with glossy black dials on both variants, creating contrast between the white gems and dark dial. That contrast also stops the watches feeling too ostentatious, although they are certainly more ostentatious than we are used to seeing from Baltic. On balance I would say they do remain unisex, though I suspect they will mostly find homes on female wrists as it would take more of that stylish modern man to pull it off – your Timothée Chalamets and Jacob Elordis, you know the type.
Powering the Baltic MR Moissanite is the Hangzhou CAL5000a Micro-rotor, an accessible micro-rotor movement with 42-hour power reserve. To match the more luxurious attitude of this release, the calibre has been updated slightly with black bridges, adding more of that suave air seen on the dial.
As noted, the MR Moissanite is a limited edition of 200 pieces, split 100 each across the Classic and Roulette styles. For pricing, both versions are €1,100 (approx. £960) on leather strap or €1,160 (approx. £1,010) on steel beads-of-rice bracelet, excluding taxes in both cases. For a final edition of a collection due for a revamp in the near future, this is what people mean when they say, ‘go out with a bang’ – or should that be ‘go out with the bling’.
Price and Specs:
More details at Baltic.
Oh dear, sad to see that Baltic have ventured into the area of gem encrusted monstrosity watches.
Baltic have always produced solid watches that are always great value for money, but why this latest release, – not at all classy. Gem-set bezels just look tacky and thoughts immediately jump to booze sodden Wannabees in certain large cities, trying to look as though they are truly in the jetset brigade where this type of watch (but with real gemstones) may (sometimes) be found, no matter the price, still showing lack of class, but lots of money, the commonality (word chosen deliberately), all still achieve the same cheap look. Whatever the cost, they all look as though they have been a Saturday morning purchase from Claire’s to match a diamante encrusted top that has been bagged at the market in Walford. No doubt some people will shout at me saying “get out of my pub”.