Haven’t we all been there? That boring speech, that meeting that seems to be going on and on, yet to nowhere at the same time? Moments when you have that deep urge inside you to check the time, as a glimmer of hope for when it will all be over? An urge you fight profoundly because it will make you seem impatient and preoccupied, simply because there is no way that you can check the time tactfully? No way –unless you are wearing a Andersen Montre à Tact of course.

Andersen refers to this unusual watch himself as extravagant but discreet. Two seemingly opposite propositions that Andersen melts together seamlessly into a single watch. The Montre à Tact has two time displays; one at the top of the watch, and one hidden between the lugs at six o’clock. While the first allows the owner to check the time in normal fashion, the latter displays the time in a far more discreet way and can be checked with a simple glance.

Both time displays consist out of a disk that is moving clockwise. With a little practice the time can be read instantly and with fairly good precision. Displaying the time in this manner also means that a great part of the dial is some sort of a wasteland. It is needed to cover the inner workings of the watch, but has by itself no immediate purpose. And that is where the extravagant character of this Montre à Tact emerges.

Andersen turns the front of the watch into something quite unique; for this he uses engine turned blue gold. Yes, this is not a typo; blue gold. Not everybody knows that white, yellow and pink/red are not the only colors in which gold can be created. For example there is also  green gold, a metal experimented by, among others, one of Andersen’s old apprentices by the name of Franck Muller (green gold has a long history of use in watchmaking; it is a naturally occurring combination of silver and gold but can also be made artificially) but there is also blue gold. And with blue gold, I actually mean vivid blue gold, not some faint blue hue over something that seems to be white or yellow gold. Although the exact process is kept secret by the creator of this type of blue gold, Ludwig Muller, it is an alloy of gold, nickel, and iron, where the iron molecules oxidize at the surface when the alloy is heated, creating the bright, blue color.

Since Andersen has secured the exclusive use of blue gold in watches, it is his to play with, and that he does! The engine turned blue gold dial is so stunning that it really draws all the attention to it, making the watch quite a conversation piece in its own right. Actually it might make it even more difficult for you to check the time without being noticed doing it, because people are bound to stare at your watch. The blue gold seems to have the magical ability to not only draw attention, but to also contain it! Can that be considered tactful? Who even wonders with the class act that is the Montre à Tact!

Special thanks to Christian Bissener of Watch Collector, official Andersen dealer for the images of this unique watch

Martin Green
Eclectic taste in Haute Horlogerie, passion for diamond set watches, loves the classics

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