At the recent SIAR (Salón Internacional Alta Relojería) in Mexico City, one particular Richard Mille replica watches caught our eye. Its the Richard Mille RM 63-02 World Timer.
Perhaps its because we were fresh from our research on World Time watches which we did to write the Andersen Genève Tempus Terrae article. Perhaps, from the many world time watches in the Cottier tradition, most strike us overly complex dials and operations, and the new RM 63-02 sets out to be make operations simple. No fuddling with the crowns, just turn the bezel. But we get ahead of ourselves.
The bezel which rotates and moves the outer ring to set the local time is the key to the simplified operations. It is mounted on ball bearings for smooth operations.
Direct and much more intuitive than using a second crown typical of the Cottier designs which is used in Patek Philippe, Andersen Genève Tempus Terrae and others. The bidirectional bezel interacts directly with the heart of the movement, and controls the turning of the outer ring. The inner ring is connected to the world time mechanism.
The movement is enhanced by the hand finished in traditional anglage, drawn out edges, circular-graining and micro blasted bridges.
Case is in Grade 5 Titanium and is vertically satin brushed with polished edges.More about the watches at iswatch.me