BASELWORLD 2014 – Corum Admiral’s Cup AC-One 45 Squelette

The Corum Admiral’s Cup was transformed from a cultivated, slightly eccentric, dress watch into a full-blown sports watch years ago. Boasting cases with a diameter of 45mm, they almost sail in a class of their own, with bold designs that nobody will every mistake for something else other than a Corum Admiral’s Cup. That by itself is quite an accomplishment, but the large, bold Admiral’s Cup case seems to keep Corum’s designers inspired, being one in which a wide range of complications have been implemented, from minute-repeaters to tourbillons –and now, the AC-One 45 Squelette.

The tremendous appeal of the AC-One 45 Squelette lies in the contrasts and clever design it offers. The automatic movement, caliber CO 082, is developed by Corum in-house, but for obvious reasons does not fill up the entire case. With most watches, this is not so much a problem, but the purpose of a skeleton watch is to show the entire movement in all its glory. This is where Corum’s design ingenuity comes into play. By using the slopes of the Admiral’s Cup general design to their advantage and over exposing the date ring, it all comes together. Although the movement is attractive to look at, it is the skeletonized date ring that draws most of the attention. The large numerals fill the space between the movement and the hour indicators in a more than grand way, adding to the illusion of the skeletonized watch, while at the same time fulfilling a very essential function.

Any way you look at it, 45mm is a lot of watch, and a lot of watch usually also means a lot of weight. Corum tackled this by crafting the Admiral’s Cup AC-One 45 Squelette from grade 5 titanium. This also adds to the contrast that the watch offers; only rarely is titanium the metal of choice for skeleton watches. Corum combines a satin finish with mirror polishing, which highlights the typical Admiral’s Cup shape of the bezel. Yet at the same time makes the watch somewhat of an enigma, with the mysterious grey color that the satin finish gives to titanium. With an overall height of 13.3mm the AC-One 45 Squelette is also not as thick as one might expect. By applying the Corum name and logo on the inside of the sapphire crystal, a sense of depth is added to the watch, especially since the sapphire crystal features an anti reflective coating.

Another feature of this watch is that it is water resistant to 300 meters. Of course this is by itself somewhat of a contrast, since a skeleton watch can hardly be considered a handy choice when actually going diving and the same goes for the beautiful crocodile leather strap. But this actually suits the watch, being ready for an adventure it is actually not dressed for. After all, James Bond usually has his best action scenes while wearing a tuxedo doesn’t he?

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

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