While on the surface Baltic and SpaceOne look like two very different brands, they are intrinsically linked by an event which took place in 2021. At the time, Baltic had just moved into a new office in Paris and in order to celebrate this milestone, they invited members of the French watchmaking scene to a party. It was at this party that Théo Auffret and Guillaume Laidet met for the first time, the men who would go on to found SpaceOne Watches. Given this shared history, a collaboration between the two brands is a lovely full circle moment and the new watch is the Baltic x SpaceOne Seconde Majeure.
Strapping the watch onto the wrist with its beige Delugs strap, it’s immediately apparent that this is a collaboration in the truest sense. It’s not fully a Baltic watch but neither is it a SpaceOne, it’s something new and in between. Its case has been designed from scratch for this project and measures 38.5mm in diameter x 12.3mm thickness in 904L stainless steel. It has alternating brushed and polished finishing across the lugs, case middle and concave bezel, while the crown position of 12 o’clock creates a clean, uninterrupted round shape.
It wears very comfortably but the real focus of the watch is the dial. It features a partially openworked regulator style jump hour display. A regulator means the hours, minutes and seconds are displayed on separate parts of the dial instead of superimposed on top of each other as with a normal three-hand watch. The purpose of this is that it’s easier to precisely set a second timepiece’s time when using a regulator as reference. Jump hour means that the hour indicator moves only once each hour to change from one numeral to the next instead of a continuous motion.
For the Baltic x SpaceOne Seconde Majeure, the hours are presented on a sapphire disc at 12 o’clock, the minutes are on a sapphire disc at 6 o’clock with a small white arrow pointing to it from the crosshair marking above, and then the seconds are shown with a large, blue seconds hand using a more traditional 60 second scale. That large seconds hand is why the watch is called Seconde Majeure, aka Major Seconds. It’s again a clever hybrid between elements of Baltic and SpaceOne, with the most traditional array of functions possible presented in a futuristic and unusual manner.
Surrounding those timing functions is a maillechort (a type of nickel silver) plate. It’s available in two styles of finishing: vertical brushing as seen here or Charbonné, a hand-applied finish that gives a chaotic almost mesmerising aesthetic. I do like the understated elegance of the brushing though.
The movement is based on the Soprod P024 with a custom jump hour module created by Théo Auffret. It has automatic winding and a 42-hour power reserve. Protecting the movement is a solid caseback with a commemorative engraving and limited edition number. Speaking of limited edition numbers, rather than having a pre-set cap, the Baltic x SpaceOne Seconde Majeure is made to order with a limited order window of May 12 – May 17. For pricing the brushed version is €2,500 (approx. £2,160) and the Charbonné is €3,500 (approx. £3,000), excluding taxes in both cases. You can meet SpaceOne at Hands On Horology in London this June.
